David Reynolds: ”It’s been a massive whirlwind experience”

Erebus Motorsport drivers David Reynolds and Luke Youlden claimed victory in the 2017 Bathurst 1000, performing a faultless race despite many challenges in the form of safety car periods and changeable weather.

“It feels really, really good. As a team we have worked extremely hard over the last year and a half to get to this point, it’s been a massive whirlwind experience,” said Reynolds.

”I owe everything to Betty, Barry and Al, it’s not just Luke and I, there’s an entire team of talented people behind us. Since we rolled the car out on Thursday it has been fast. We didn’t have the best pace in the wet but as the track dried out we had heaps of grip out there and it all switched on.”

The duo started second but were outside the top ten with 30 laps to go, a position improved to fourth at the final safety car restart with 16 laps to go.

“Right place, right time let me tell you. Little team of rejects as we call ourselves, all working together,” said Youlden. ”Every time I have driven the car this year it has been really fast. I love working with Dave, with Al, Betty and the entire team. My first time here it was very similar conditions, a bit more experience under the belt now and 18 years to get here. I’ve come close a few times but it’s feels surreal to finally be the winners of the mountain.”

Team-mates Dale Wood and Chris Pither made it a very strong overall result for the team by crossing the line in fourth position from 21st on the grid.

“Pretty strange day; we didn’t start in a fantastic spot but had really good pace in the wet particularly, and then the car was really strong in the dry as well,” said Wood.

”It’s so funny how a day like today pans out. You just keep getting in and punching out the fastest times you can, it’s effectively a 1000-kilometre sprint race these days. The weather gods threw everything at us but we got a good start, good opening stint, Chris did a faultless job and was out here punching out really good time and matching it with a lot of the main drivers, so couldn’t have asked for anything more. We then brought ourselves a ticket to the last few laps and it was all on from there. Finishing fourth, especially at the mountain is good.”