He competed in the TA2 Series in America in a Ford Mustang bodied chassis and scored three podium places and 11th overall, on circuits unfamiliar to the 21-year-old.

More recently he spearheaded the Australians win over the New Zealanders in the TA2 Trans-Tasman Challenge. In a Peter Robinson-owned Dodge Challenge he won all six races over the two rounds at  Euromarque Motorsport Park and Highlands Park.

For AWC Race Tasmania at Symmons Plains on March 15-17, Herne has assembled his own outfit to prepare and run his own Challenger. It is the same car he won the 2021 title in before he linked with Garry Rogers Motorsport to win in a Mustang in 2022. Until a couple of weeks ago, it had been on display in the National Motor Racing Museum in Bathurst.

“It’s been a rushed couple of weeks, we collected the car from Bathurst and haven’t stopped since then. When it rolled into the museum in 2021, it was straight off the track and hadn’t even gone up on the jacks,” said Herne.

“I know the championship is a long shot, but I definitely want to come back and go straight to the top. The stuff I’ve learnt over the last year, the cars were quite different, but there’s plenty of things I can relate in theory.

“I’ll do a shakedown at Winton just to make sure everything works how it should, but then we’re straight into the deep end in Tassie. I’ll be the crew chief, engineer, and mechanic in the garage at home. I have some guys coming to help out at the track which will take the load off.

“But it’s very much a self-run effort. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, especially more so recently, as I think taking responsibility is pretty important to moving forward. if things go backwards there won’t be many others to blame.”

Across those two years in Australia, Herne had 19 race wins from 35 races and missed the podium only twice in that time. Twice previously he has raced at Symmons Plains and won three races and placed in the other three. This time there will four races, with all live and free to view on the Seven Network.