Ryal Harris believes the wild encounters produced by the Haltech V8 SuperUte Series a fortnight ago at Sydney Motorsport Park was exactly what the revamped category needed.
In a throwback to the V8 Utes days of old, the field collectively got their elbows out, particularly in the second race of the weekend.
Harris was in the thick of the action, involved in incidents with both David Sieders and Cameron Crick.
“We all know we needed that race, just to bring back a bit of the old,” Harris told Speedcafe.com ahead of Round 3 at the BP Ultimate Sydney SuperSprint this weekend.
“I love racing like that and it was good fun.
“It obviously didn’t turn out real good for me, I got turned around, but as a whole everyone came in after that and it wasn’t like everyone was angry at everyone, it was sort of more like ‘wow, we needed that’ because it was probably the best race of the weekend.”
Despite copping its fair share of criticism ever since making the move to diesel-powered SuperUtes in 2018, Harris said the new-look category – now boasting V8 engines – is a step forward.
“They’re faster than the old [V8] utes and they’re actually better to race, like you can brake deeper, you can drive them a bit harder, they don’t move around as much as the old utes,” he said.
“They really should have done this from the start [of the SuperUte era].
“I was never a fan of the diesels, even when they announced it… as a whole, everyone is happy with the direction the category is going now.
“The only thing that is a bit frustrating for me is the gearboxes at the moment are a bit of a weak spot for them, but they’re working pretty hard behind the scenes to sort of solve those issues.”
Now 26 points behind new series leader Aaron Borg, Harris is aiming to accomplish the rare feat of winning titles in three different generations of utes.
Harris won the V8 Utes crown thrice (2012, 2013 and 2015) and took out the inaugural SuperUtes title in 2018.
“I think we’re 26 points behind him or something now, but obviously we have just got to be consistent for the next two rounds and hopefully make it back up,” he added.
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