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The 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner replaces Scott Pye at the Charlie Schwerkolt-owned team, where he will drive the #20 Chevrolet Camaro, after three years at Grove Racing.
His arrival at Grove had coincided with the initial investment in Kelly Racing which eventually became a full takeover, and was followed by the recruitment of big-name engineers David Cauchi (for a new role as Team Principal) and Grant McPherson (as Technical Director).
The spend on infrastructure and people over multiple years is expected to now pay dividends in the form of a genuine challenge to the likes of Triple Eight Race Engineering, the long-time Supercars powerhouse which used to employ both Cauchi and McPherson.
Team 18, by way of contrast, has necessarily just recruited a raft of new people.
Car #20 Race Engineer Richard ‘Crusty’ Hollway may be about to start his fourth season at Mount Waverley, but Reynolds himself is one of several changes in key positions over the off-season.
Helping matters is Reynolds’ history with Hollway, dating back to his early years in the category as a Walkinshaw Racing junior, when he was Paul Dumbrell’s co-driver at the HSV Dealer Team in 2008.
Speaking after his first test day with Team 18, at Winton, he told Speedcafe, “I’ve had Crusty before, in 2008 when I drove with PD in the enduros, so I’ve known him forever.
“But, this is the first time we’re actually going to work together full-time.
“I love him; he’s a cool character, he’s fun.
“Hopefully, I can help him along, we can make the right decision together, and make our car fast.
“Because, at the end of the day, allegedly everyone has the same car,” he quipped, after the parity wars of 2023, “[so] it’s who can tune their car on the day to the conditions and the tyre and your set-up and stuff.
“We ran through a whole bunch of stuff today [at Team 18’s pre-season test day], so we need to sit down and decipher it.
“Obviously, I’ve come from a team with a lot of systems in place but this team is like a clean sheet of paper, so we’re going to try and build some things into the background to make their jobs easier and make the decisions correctly, and make my job easier as well.”
The superlarrikin of Supercars confirmed he is indeed settling in well with his new team.
“I love it; really, really cool,” stated Reynolds.
“Great bunch of guys to work with, everyone’s happy, got the same goal, everyone works really well together as a group.
“It’s only day one so, once things get a bit challenging, that’s when true character shows, I like to call it.
“But, so far, I’m really enjoying it.
“It’s been… ‘ducking’ cool.”
