Tickford Racing’s Cameron Waters is heading to this weekend’s Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 with a chip on his shoulder after another near miss in the Great Race.
Waters and James Moffat finished third in the Repco Bathurst 1000, the former’s third straight podium in a race for which he has also qualified on pole position twice in that period.
Tickford had been vocal in the lead-up to the Mount Panorama event about its complete lack of interest in being bridesmaids, with Team Principal Tim Edwards stating that they were “pissed off” with another second place in 2021.
Not only did they come so close again, the #6 Monster Energy Mustang had been running in the effective lead until an incident on Lap 46 with Brodie Kostecki which left Moffat and Edwards incensed.
Now, hostilities in the Repco Supercars Championship resume with a pair of 250km races on the streets of Surfers Paradise, which has been missing from the calendar since 2019 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m super pumped to get back up to the Goldie,” said Waters.
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“I love street tracks and it’s one of the coolest ones out there, so it’s awesome to be heading back.
“We’ve been pretty quick there most years, but it’s been a few years since we’ve raced there so it’ll be a bit of a reset for everyone.
“We want to get on top of the car early and set ourselves up for a really strong weekend.
“Obviously, we’ve got a bit of a chip on our shoulder after Bathurst.
“It was a tough week for the team and, although it was nice to get third, we didn’t achieve what we had set out to do there, so we’re working hard to put it all together and come out of this weekend with some really strong results.”
While Car #6 crossed the finish line in third position, the sister #5 entry of James Courtney did not make it to the end of Lap 5 of the Bathurst 1000 after co-driver Zane Goddard ran off at The Chase and then rejoined in the path of the #8 Brad Jones Racing entry and the #26 Grove Racing entry.
BJR and Grove have undertaken rebuilds of those cars, while Tickford has opted to swap chassis for Courtney.
Still, the Campbellfield outfit has also had a task on its hands to get a spare car ready for the Gold Coast event.
“It’s been a big couple of weeks for the crew,” said Edwards.
“Obviously we had a fair bit of work to do on the cars after Bathurst, in particular on Car 5.
“The boys have put in some big hours to get everything prepared for this weekend, so we’ll get our heads down and look to deliver the results they deserve.”
Waters remains the last driver who could deny Shane van Gisbergen another championship title, although he faces an uphill task to do so given the Red Bull Ampol Racing pilot is 567 points ahead.
Practice 1 for the Supercars Championship field starts on Friday at 12:35 local time/13:35 AEDT.
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