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Anton De Pasquale hopes to do Dick Johnson “proud” as his team notches up a historic milestone at the Repco Bathurst 1000.
Dick Johnson Racing will become the first in ATCC/Supercars history to reach 1000 races next weekend (October 6-9).
It is rather fitting that the occasion comes at Mount Panorama, a place etched into DJR’s history books since it was founded by Johnson in 1980.
As revealed earlier this week, the squad’s two Ford Mustangs will carry a tribute livery for the 2022 edition of the Great Race.
CLICK HERE to view a gallery of the livery.
The design is a nod to the EL Falcon driven by Johnson and his son Steven in 1998, their first time sharing a car in the Bathurst 1000.
De Pasquale is aiming to celebrate the milestone with a dream result.
“It’s cool to see how much that day means to people and if I wasn’t racing I would be there as a fan as well,” he told Speedcafe.com.
“Obviously being the 1000th race in history for Dick and the team is immense.
“Hopefully we can do the livery and all that stuff proud and have a really good week.
“We’re in as good of a space as anyone, I think.
“Bathurst is such an iconic, massive race so everyone goes there to try and take it out and we’re not different to that.
“We were half in the race last year but nobody ever had enough for Car #25.
“We’ll try and tune what we call the weaknesses from last year at Bathurst out.”
The Car #25 De Pasquale is referring to is that of Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth, with the duo proving unbeatable in last year’s Great Race.
While De Pasquale’s Mustang started on the front row in 2021, the #11 — which will once again have Tony D’Alberto as its co-driver — failed to make the finish with a driveline issue.
DJR Team Principal, Ben Croke, says the squad will take key learnings into this year’s event.
“We never stopped looking,” Croke told Speedcafe.com when asked if DJR has looked into its Bathurst race pace.
“Obviously we’ve got a big circle around that one on the calendar so everything we can do we’ve been working on and trying to get the best out of the qualifying and race pace.
“We’ve had a couple of hard tyre rounds with Townsville and Pukekohe as well, which we didn’t have last year and I think have helped.
“Just constantly working on it and looking forward to getting there and seeing how we stack up.”
De Pasquale added of partnering with D’Alberto again: “It’s pretty handy, especially Tony who has been in the team for so many years as well so he just fits right in.
“We don’t have to spend days working on seats and all that stuff, we’ve done that last year so we carry all that over, which makes life a lot easier.
“We just come back and blow the cobwebs out and get back into it.”
Practice 1 at Bathurst will get underway at 11:00 AEDT on Thursday, October 6.
