“He just gave me a big hug,” said Nash of their encounter in parc ferme, where grandfather Terry and friends Brodie Kostecki and Broc Feeney also gathered to offer their congratulations.
‘The Dude’ had cheered from the pit wall as he watched the 21-year-old make the Morris family just the second to have two generations win a race in the series.
A Bathurst 1000 winner turned driver coach at his much-lauded Norwell Motorplex, Morris Sr has unsurprisingly played a big role in his son’s racing career.
However, it’s been a step away from the family team and into Tickford Racing that has transformed the youngster into a Super2 winner.
“I love my Dad but we butt heads, you know what I mean?” said Nash in the aftermath of victory in just his second round with Tickford.
“He’ll agree with me. You get too emotional and it’s good just to go to a race team and it’s all logical. That’s the good thing about it.”
Morris Jr was never pushed into motorsport by his father and was a late starter behind the wheel, taking it up in his mid-teens without the usual years of childhood karting.
Just a couple of years on from his first race he won the 2021 Super3 Series driving for Paul Morris Motorsports and then stepped into Super2 with the family squad.
Those 2022 and ’23 Super2 seasons yielded no better than an eighth-place race finish as driver and team struggled against the multi-car, professional outfits.
Now at Tickford Racing he’s part of a four-car powerhouse that swept the Symmons Plains round podium with Morris third behind winner Rylan Gray and runner-up Reuben Goodall.
“It’s amazing. I had one good qualifying session in my first two years of Super2,” he said.
“When I ran my own car, it was just me there by myself, so I struggled a lot.
“Come here and you’ve got three [other] fast dudes, you can all learn something off each other.
“I think it shows with all of us being up the top in one point of this round, it’s pretty cool.”
Morris’ move away from the family team actually occurred last year, when he swapped Super2 for a Carrera Cup campaign with Ash Seward Motorsport.
That came with backing from Scott Taylor, a successful Gold Coast-based businessman and enthusiastic amateur racer who has dabbled in various categories, including Porsches.
Taylor has bankrolled Morris’ move back to Super2 with Tickford, while also running a two-car SuperUtes team with himself and Morris Sr as drivers.
“Basically, Scott Taylor wanted to help a young bloke achieve his dream and get to Supercars,” explained Nash.
“He had the Porsche and that there, so we raced that initially and then he said, ‘do you want to try something different?’
“I said, ‘look, Super2 is the thing you’ve got to do to get into the main game’, so we found a deal, and basically, he’s been in my corner ever since.
“I wouldn’t be here without him so it’s all thanks to him.”
Now a winner in Super2 and the Trans Am Series, which he continues to compete in with PMM, Morris is hopeful of breaking into the Supercars Championship.
“I think I’ve proven myself in all the other categories I’ve raced in,” he said when asked if he feels like he’s getting closer to a co-drive or wildcard in the main game.
“In Trans Am, I’ve raced against the Supercar-level dudes, it’s just this (a Super2 win) has been the monkey on my back and it’s good to get it off.
“Hopefully a few of the team owners down the pit lane have a look at that and it does something.”
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