Payne piled pressure on Erebus Motorsport’s Cooper Murray in the closing laps of the Great Race, and with nine laps to go went side-by-side with the #9 Camaro into The Chase.
At the right-hand kink, Payne went around the outside of Murray and touched the wet grass.
The Kiwi got loose and missed the apex before sailing through the corner and off onto the outfield.
That gave race leader Murray a reprieve and PremiAir Racing James Golding second place.
Payne said it was “a pretty cool move” but thought it had ended his chances.
“I was going down the straight and I thought, ‘This is it. I just have to stick here and go for it’,” Payne explained.
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“I just hung around the outside and just caught the left-rear on the grass. I couldn’t pull it up in time, but I felt like I had a pretty good crack.
“It was a pretty wild moment. I thought after that I was probably done, so, it’s pretty cool to come back from that.”
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The seas ultimately parted with six laps to go when Golding got into the side of Murray at Griffins Bend and tipped the race-leading Camaro into a half-spin.
Golding was stung by stewards with a five-second penalty, which ultimately cruelled his hopes.
“I saw Jimmy had a really good run going up to Turn 2 (Griffins Bend). I sort of knew he was going to go and I knew it was going to be pretty tricky passing there,” Payne explained.
“It was pretty greasy on the inside. Those two made contact and luckily I could just sweep through on the inside.
“Cooper was putting up a pretty good fight, but I think he just lost a little bit of car speed ultimately at the end there.”
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Winning Sunday’s Great Race marked a massive bounce back for Payne, who failed to make the Top 10 Shootout after only qualifying 19th.
Tander did a lot of heavy lifting early, making headway before handing the reins to Payne.
While it’s Payne’s first win, it’s win number six for Tander, who made the move from Triple Eight Race Engineering to Grove Racing in 2023 fresh off winning with Shane van Gisbergen.
“I thought that would be pretty optimistic, not gonna lie,” Payne said of his chances.
“It was a really hard day for us on Friday. We just didn’t have the pace, and I think we did a good job turning the car around.
“It looked pretty speedy in the dry as well. The whole race was basically wet, so that was what you had to be quick in.
“We managed to make some good changes in the pit stops and put us in the right direction
“It actually got really tough there when the rain was probably coming down at its most,” he added.
“There was a lot of aquaplaning on the streets, a lot of rivers, so you had to drive around them a lot, and it sort of got better at the end there.
“It actually dried out a bit. I didn’t think our car was probably as good when it was a bit drier. I thought we were pretty good when it was wet, so those conditions made it tricky.
“Around here it’s ultimately probably one of the toughest places to to race around it in the wet, certainly with all the pressure on, on the top three and us to do the job.
“It was pretty cool at the end there it was getting really foggy over Skyline and that so it was pretty hard to see.
“Well, I thought it was pretty cool, it would make some cool photos. It was pretty amazing.”
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