David Reynolds – Erebus Motorsport is a small team that punches well above its weight and beats the bigger team

David Reynolds – Erebus Motorsport is a small team that punches well above its weight and beats the bigger team

Penrite Racing’s David Reynolds has had a productive year so far. After finishing last year’s championship in 16^th, David is currently eighth in the championship and is more consistently in the top ten than when he was at this stage last year. His best race finish was third at Phillip Island in race five, and his best qualifying position was third at Townsville in race 12.

David feels that the car looks after the new form of compound tyre (this year, the Supercar championship is moving from a more rounded tyre compound to a squarer one). He feels that he has a good car but that they also have to work on setting it up, as the car is “good in qualifying but not in the race or good in the race and not good in qualifying.”

Due to the new compound tyre, the cars have been a bit quicker this year, which has produced a surprise leader of the championship. DJRTP has surprised many fans and teams, with former GRM driver Scott McLaughlin signing with DJRTP and leading the championship by 15 points over Red Bull Racing Australia’s Jamie Whincup. David feels their performances this year are different from their performances last year. “Last year you never really factored them into anything. They were always just inside the top ten … they imported the Triple 8 engineer Ludo Lacroix; obviously, he has taken that setup and adapted it to the Ford. They are lightning fast and the cars look good to drive. They race well and they just look good.”

Erebus Motorsport recently confirmed that they will be racing the 2018 Holden Commodore next year and David is certainly looking forward to driving it, as he thinks that it’s a nice design. However, he feels that it will be a change to drive a turbo after driving the V8. “They have different parametres, like cooling parametres, and they have intercoolers. The weight will be different. The tall curves will be different, along with the power curve, which will be very different.”

The Pirtek Enduro Cup starts on Friday the 15^th of September at Sandown Raceway and is followed by races at Bathurst. The series concludes in the Gold Coast. David’s goal for the series is “If you qualify and race in the top five, you give yourself the best chance to win. Either way, it’s not a bad result.” With the endurance races coming up, drivers spend time with their co-drivers sorting out the seat inserts that need to go into the car, the placement of belts and driver changes. This year, David is sharing the role with the experienced Luke Youlden, who is slightly bigger and bulker than he is. David feels that it takes time to get things sorted out so that the car is comfortable for both drivers. “In our cars, we run the E-Cell. It’s a safer seat, like a big carbon fibre tub, but it’s really hard to pour a seat into and it’s a bit slower for driver changes. With the old race-tech seat you can do a 15-16 driver change if you’re going good. With ours, we’re struggling to get to that 18, 19, 20 second, which is kind of our limit.”

David feels that if he qualifies and gets good race results, he could finish as high as sixth in the championship. “If I could march forward in the championship that would be awesome, but if not I’ll try to retain eighth. I have a couple of young and hungry drivers behind me trying to get it.”