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Zane Goddard says he will not be out to prove a particular point when he drives the Supercheap Auto Triple Eight Race Engineering wildcard.
The 23-year-old will pair with Craig Lowndes in the 2023 Repco Bathurst 1000 and could potentially contest other Supercars events in its third Camaro in what is a significant turn of fortune relative to the Great Race of 2022.
Then, Goddard attracted heavy criticism from his rivals, and a $10,000 fine, when an error while attempting a pass at The Chase caused a crash which took the James Courtney Ford Mustang he was co-driving and two other cars out of the race after less than five laps.
Asked if he had a point to prove, he told Speedcafe.com, “Not in particular.
“Obviously, last year was going well until the incident. It was only a small mistake that sort of dominoed into such a big thing so it’s just one of those things; you live and you learn.
“Obviously, the aftermath of it was all pretty average but it is what it is. I feel like I’ll come back stronger.
“I’ve definitely taken a lot of learnings from that but I don’t feel like there’s so much a point to prove. I’m just going to go out and do my absolute best and try and put on a really good performance for Supercheap.
“Obviously, last year they had a really good performance so if we can do better than that, that’s got to be the goal.
“But at the end of the day, whenever I go into a race event, I always give my hundred percent anyway. That never changes; even if there was an incident last year, that doesn’t really change anything.
“I’m just going to do my best and whatever it is on the day is what it will be.”
Goddard says he continued to enjoy a good relationship with Tickford, with whom he was in talks about another enduro campaign before the opportunity to drive the Supercheap Auto Camaro came up.
“They were great during the whole process,” he recalled.
“Obviously, no one wanted that to end the way that it did last year but they were super-supportive and even when I told them that I was moving on, they were supportive of the decision.
“Obviously, they’ve got Declan [Fraser] in the car this year and with Zak [Best] and stuff, they’ve got some strong drivers there.
“I think just as a career move, it’s a good option obviously were I’ve landed and there’s no hard feelings there.
“I appreciate everything they did for me and it was a great experience working with them.”
The 2023 Bathurst 1000 takes place on October 5-8.
