Long has joined Pedders Rally Team this year, stepping up from the WRX Challenge to be an outright contender in the EROAD Australian Rally Championship.
That transition will see him jump into a Skoda Fabia, built to the older R5 specifications that precede the newer Rally2 cars.
In preparation for Rally Queensland on April 18-19, the 18-year-old has completed roughly 200 kilometres of testing to get up to speed with his new machine.
Speaking with Speedcafe ahead of the rally, Long said the Skoda is the most confidence-inspiring car he’s driven.
“What I’ve sort of realised is that it’s just an instrument that lets you do exactly what you want to do,” Long explained.
“It’s like whatever you’ve ever dreamed of being a rally driver.
“You can go into a corner the way you want to and the car basically does the hard work for you and you can really focus on your commitment. The capabilities are amazing.”
Like a lot of up-and-comers nowadays, sim racing is another tool that drivers use to practice.
Long said he was surprised by how similar the virtual Skoda was to the real deal.
“My whole start for motorsport was actually through sim racing,” said Long.
“I was always playing R5 cars in DiRT Rally. You drive it in real life and you go, ‘Oh, okay, yeah, it feels like that’.
“It’s so predictable and consistent. Does the same thing every time. That’s a lot like the games that I used to play – and I still do, I still use it as a bit of a training thing.
“It’s definitely a step up in professionalism and the approach I’ve got to take.
“It lets you focus on your driving and less on having to adapt to a car.”
“It’s not as hard as you would expect,” he said of the step up from the Subaru to the Skoda.
“The pace is a lot higher. You have to think I’m going to be coming in at this corner 50 kilometres an hour faster than I would be in a production car and it can go through the corner 30 kilometres an hour faster than a production car.
“You’re running at a different pace, but the skills are the same and it’s all about just the reaction times.
“Despite the pace difference, you do get a lot of time to think because the car is so responsive. You get to brake 30 metres later. So that’s 30 extra metres of thinking that you have.
“Through a corner, you can make tiny little adjustments, and the car does exactly what you want.
“You almost don’t have to think as hard. You can really just focus on trying to be neat and smooth and try to be as fast as you can.”
Long’s ultimate goal is to be a professional rally driver competing overseas.
He’s hoping that he will be able to achieve that with the support of the Pedders family, who have taken him onboard this season.
“I’m definitely focused on trying to make a professional career overseas in rallying,” said Long.
“It’s been my dream for my entire life. I don’t think there are a lot of other 18-year-olds – certainly in the southern hemisphere – able to drive a car like this at this age.
“I’ve definitely got to take that as a blessing.
“With the opportunity I’ve got with Petters and all of our sponsors and in a car like this in such a competitive championship in Australia, the ambition has to be to make it overseas.”
There is something of an irony in the support from the eponymous team owner-driver, given Long will be both a teammate and a rival to Scott Pedder.
“He sometimes surprises me with the thing he says about how much he wants us to do,” Long said.
“It was sort of a surprise that this whole thing came together, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.
“Scott and the whole Pedders business and Pedders family have been so generous, and I think that there’s a lot of sort of harmony within our family and their family.
“We have a lot of fun within the team, and I think it’s definitely a relationship that hopefully will continue for a long time.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to go represent them overseas.”
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