The now 22-year-old was famously denied a Supercars start in a Garry Rogers Motorsport wildcard at Bathurst in 2020 due to a lack of Superlicence points.
He remains yet to race at any level of Supercars, instead of focusing on Trans Am – both in Australia and the United States – and the now defunct S5000.
Herne says today’s laps at PremiAir’s post-season ride day were borne out of a phone call to team owner Peter Xiberras, who he’d previously tested for in 2022.
“I was in the shed working on my Trans Am car not long after Bathurst and I thought, ‘I need to do something about this’,” Herne told Speedcafe.
“I love Trans Am and love what I’m doing at the moment, but I’ve watched a lot of Bathursts on the couch and have gotten to the point where I need to get out on track.
“It’s great to watch it but since I got so close in 2020, I just want to race. And the best team on the grid to do it with in my eyes is PremiAir.
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“I’m thankful to Pete and everyone at PremiAir to have me for the ride day, but we’ve got a long way to go with getting everything approved and finalised and ready to go.
“It’d be great to tick off a few rounds, but there’s a lot that has to happen between now and then to get it up and running.”
Two changes to Supercars’ licensing requirements in the last 12 months – removing a Super2 mandate and awarding more points to Trans Am – should make Herne’s Superlicence sign-off a formality.
Ongoing discussions within Supercars about whether to expand wildcard eligibility from one sprint round to two could, though, impact Herne’s plans.
While Bathurst is on his bucket list, Herne says a solo wildcard start is what he really needs to help with his bigger career objective.
“One solo event is my main goal to be honest, because that’s your chance to prove yourself,” he said.
“When you do a co-drive or drive for someone else the result is largely in the other guy’s hands.
“If I can have a good solo round, you never know where that leads to.
“My goal is a full-time drive and there’s no better way to do it than to simulate a full-time drive.”
Herne hopes to next year divide his time between Australia and the United States, where he is plotting another TA2 Series campaign.
The Lismore-based driver’s Gen3 laps today left him encouraged by the similarity between the machines.
“I’ve obviously raced in the US with the American TA2 Series and those cars are very similar in a lot of ways to an Australian Supercar,” he said.
“The only difference was they still have the live axle rear-end in America, over here they’ve got independent suspension rear-end, so that was something to get my head around.
“But just learning how to right-foot brake again was probably the challenge of the day, while also having some poor bastard strapped in beside me!”
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