The Supercars grid will expand to 28 cars for the inaugural OTR SuperSprint at The Bend Motorsport Park following confirmation of two wildcard entries for the event.
Brad Jones Racing will once again field a fourth ZB Commodore for Macauley Jones, who will be joined at the August 24-26 event by fellow Dunlop Super2 Series regular Kurt Kostecki in a Kostecki Brothers Racing VF Commodore.
Jones’ outing follows a wildcard appearance at the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown where he finished 27th and 24th in the two races.
Like many of the paddock yet to experience the new 4.95km The Bend Motorsport Park circuit, the 23-year-old is looking forward to the opportunity to race on Australia’s newest race track.
“It is very exciting. Once the option to be able to do it came up I was really hoping to do it,” Jones told Speedcafe.com.
“It looks like it will be a fantastic facility and a really good racing track and it is new for everyone.
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“It is going be tough no matter what, but everyone will be on a level playing field and it will come down to who can adapt to the circuit. It will also provide more information for our team by having an extra car.
“Hopefully we can learn a few more things in the first day of practice and make some gains that way.
“I have looked at some videos and it looks like it is a very cool track and very flowing. It is quite a long circuit but it is top notch.”
For Kostecki the trip to The Bend will also be his second wildcard run this season with the driver locked in to race at the Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint next month.
The 19-year-old, currently third in the Super2 standings, last made a full Supercars race appearance at 2016 when he substituted for the injured Lee Holdsworth in the Preston Hire Racing Holden.
“We always planned to try and do two but obviously there are limited spots at each track and lucky for us because we wanted Tailem Bend and QR and we got both so we’re pretty happy with that,” Kostecki told Speedcafe.com.
“Now that it’s all locked away we can get things into place and fully focused on doing the best job when we get there.”
Kostecki is planning to ramp his preparation for the two wildcard runs with a test at Queensland Raceway tomorrow.
“I’m sure we’ll have a few teething issues here and there but we’re doing our best now to make sure we’re on top of most of it,” he added.
“But after we see how the first round at QR goes, I think it would be good for us to have another crack at it straight away (and) it’ll be our next round as a team as well.
“We’ve got a few weeks in between to get on top of things and then we can have another go.
“We’ve had a test day in between (the last Super2 round and the next at Townsville) and we’ve got another test day tomorrow but we’ll be on the soft tyre tomorrow testing for QR, but again, it’s more miles in the seat.
“We’ll be focusing on procedures and pit stops and things like that, and also me getting used to the dual spring and soft tyre, so we’ve got a big day planned but it mainly revolves around the QR main series wildcard testing.”
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