David Reynolds has likened the current sense of camaraderie at Ford Performance Racing to a high school hockey team in a typically entertaining press conference performance in Hamilton.
Reynolds joined team-mates Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom in the post-practice conference after the trio locked out the top three spots in the final session of the day at the ITM400.
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 4 report and results
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 3 report and results
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 2 report and results
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 1 report and results
The 26-year-old Reynolds has joined FPR this season after a lengthy contractual dispute with former team Kelly Racing, and says he’s relishing his new environment.
“This team is just the best team I’ve ever been involved in,” said Reynolds.
“Everyone is just so happy to work with you. These two guys (Davison and Winterbottom) are pretty cool to work with. It’s a real team environment down there, everyone gets along.
“It’s like back when I used to play hockey for school and everyone got along.”
Reynolds currently sits 15th in the points standings following incidents in two of the season’s first four races. The situation has seen Reynolds complete the two additional ‘bottom 50 percent’ practice sessions both today and at Symmons Plains three weeks ago.
While benefitting from the extra miles, Reynolds says that the tyre regulations – which today saw The Bottle-O Falcon run a set of pre-marked softs in the first two sessions, new hards in Practice 3 and new softs in the Practice 4 – can make for a confusing day.
“We had soft tyres on so I’m doing really fast times (in Practice 1 and 2), and then we put the hard tyres on (in Practice 3) and I got real depressed,” said Reynolds.
“It’s just a funny scenario for me to be in compared to the other guys who just do two sessions. I’ve got to do four sessions and I’m buggered at the end of the day!
“I’m trying to get out of it (the bottom half of the championship),” he added, “but people just keep crashing into me or I keep crashing into walls!”
Reynolds’ day in Hamilton wasn’t without incident, as the former Formula Ford and Carrera Cup Champion broke his car’s suspension in Practice 2. Typically, Reynolds made light of the misjudgement.
“I first hit the fence out of Turn 2. I just scraped it, it was one of those fences that sucks you in. When you get close to it jumps out at you,” he quipped.
“The second time was that turn that’s not really a turn between Turns 6 and 7. We call it a straight. I crashed on a straight, how stupid is that?
“Where the walls come to a point the actual tyre touched the wall and it sort of ripped the upright out.
“It was kind of a strange accident because when it happened I thought I had a flat tyre – I didn’t even know that I’d touched the wall. It sounds stupid but that’s how I think sometimes.”
The V8 Supercars return to the track tomorrow for a 20 minute qualifying session at 1110 local time. A Top 10 Shootout at 1220 and a 200km race at 1505 will complete the Saturday program.
Click below to read Speedcafe.com’s V8 Race Guide.
