Exhaust Notes Australia headed to Sydney Motorsport Park for the recent Supercars Sydney 500. We were there as guests of the Australian Racing Driver’s Club in steamy 34-degree (Celsius) temps, which translated to track heat in excess of 50-degrees.
The event was guaranteed to be an absolute scorcher, and the track action didn’t disappoint. This year marked a significant change, with the introduction of the factory backed Toyota GR Supra racing teams.
For this writer, it offered some welcome variety to the traditional two manufacturer focused racing of previous seasons. It also threw up some questions, such as how the new cars would perform against the established Ford and GM crews.
Despite looking good on paper, the real test would be in the intense pressure cooker that is a race weekend. Before we would that find out, the track action kicked off with a support roster that included Super2, Touring Cars Masters, Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Cup, and V8 Super Utes.
The latter featured alumni (and co-founder of TorqueBase) Justin Ruggier. The support races were, unfortunately, consigned to the short track due to the heat causing some issues with the recently resurfaced main circuit.
This created some very intense and close racing, with shortened laps not allowing much gap for supporters to catch a breath before the cars came past once more. Mid-late afternoon saw the threatened storms start to roll in with several lightning strikes seen around the circuit.
It all added to the tension and drama on the track. With rain starting to fall midway through the Supercars qualifying session, a somewhat upset grid saw some of the favourites starting from further down than expected.
By the time the race came round, there was some light drizzle over parts of the circuit, despite the heat. That led to some early excursions onto the grass in the opening laps and plenty of action throughout the race.
For the record, Race 1 on the Friday night saw Brock Feeney, Aaron Cameron and James Golding top the results in an all-Mustang podium, with the first Supra home driven by Andre Heimgartner to eighth.
Race 2 on the Saturday night was a much more competitive affair, with Anton de Pasquale putting the Team 18 Camaro on the top step, ahead of Brodie Kostecki and Matt Payne in Mustangs. Ryan Would brought the Truck Assist Supra home in seventh.
The only daytime race of the weekend, Sunday’s mid-afternoon run, saw Broc Feeney (the eventual round winner), Matt Payne and Cam Waters make it another all-Ford podium, ahead of the fast finishing defending champ Chaz Mostert in the Supra.
