Stone took part in ‘Night Fever’ at Morgan Park Raceway near Warwick, Queensland, joining a team put together by MSR sponsor SS Signs.
The charity-focused event features 20 hours of racing, split into 12 on Saturday and eight Sunday, during which teams can rotate drivers across multiple budget race cars.
SS Signs fielded three cars – one Hyundai Excel and two Toyota Corollas – and counted Stone, Cameron Crick, Jack Le Brocq and Todd Hazelwood among their line-up.
“SS Signs have done the event for years and this year it didn’t conflict with any of our racing, so they said, ‘do you want to come and have a drive?’” Stone explained to Speedcafe.
“Originally it was meant to be myself and one of my drivers, we obviously took Cameron Crick, and then it was going to be Jack Le Brocq and Barry Ryan having a bit of an Erebus versus MSR battle, as a bit of a joke.
“Barry was unable to attend and Todd Hazelwood was able to step in. Jack and Todd, we’ve got a long rapport, so it was a fun weekend with a couple of old mates.
“The guys from SS are a great group, it was good to go away with them. It was a hell of a lot of fun, we had a good time and didn’t take it very seriously.
“For the team with the biggest allotment of professionals in motorsport, we were probably the least professional bunch!”
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Apart from a handful of kart races as a kid, Night Fever marked Stone’s racing debut – and it began in ominous fashion.
“The hatch came up halfway through my first lap,” he said. “I wasn’t aware it was up straight away.
“Each car has direct radio access from race control, so they were calling the car number and I realised I hadn’t actually looked at what car number I was in!
“By the end of the weekend I felt I was competitive with the general population there,” he added.
“But obviously in a team with three professional Supercars drivers I wasn’t the standout performer.”
All three SS Signs entries were ultimately classified as DNFs, but according to Stone that reflected the team’s approach rather than anything going wrong.
“On Saturday we parked up at dinner time because we wanted to have pizza and beers and not because the cars stopped running,” he said.
“On Sunday we packed up at lunch time because we were all keen to head off home. For us the 20 hours was more just about open track time.
“There were people there taking it seriously and going for outright pace and position and groups like us just having a bit of fun.”
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While Stone isn’t planning a late crack at a driving career, expect to see him – and the MSR team – involved in similar events in future.
“In professional motorsport we work so hard and take everything so seriously, so to be able to go away and have some fun was a really cool thing,” he said.
“It’s credit to SS for getting us involved and we’re already making plans to build an MSR entry to go alongside their entries for next year.
“We’re keen to build something so more of our team, mechanics, engineers or whatnot, can come out and have a bit of fun.”
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