Singleton racing rookie Ryan Gilroy is “stoked” he made it onto the Dunlop Super Series podium on debut at the Newcastle 500.
The 21-year-old managed to steer around a smash on the track in Race 2 yesterday afternoon just past Shortland Esplanade to also finish 10th overall in the race that included both Super 3 and Super 2 categories and finish 3rd overall in Super 3.
After the race and back in the pits yesterday, Ryan said he couldn’t believe it.
“It was a very different outcome to where I thought I was going to be four hours ago. I stuffed quali up pretty bad,
“We had a car that was good enough probably to win the race but to come back from where we were and finish top ten outright and P3 for the weekend is unreal on debut so I am stoked.”
The race was cut short after Matt Chada ended up in the wall causing a pile up.
“It would’ve been really nice to get some more racing laps in, we had a bit of a break in the middle stint there and we were going to have another crack at them, had the pace, just wanted to conserve and go after it a bit,
“We definitely had the pace to push forward, but all in all the car is straight and we finished the race.
“Other than the little bingles that we had in practice, the car is pretty much unscathed so to get around on your debut in a Supercar on a street circuit like Newcastle is pretty rare so as far as I’m concerned we ticked all the boxes this weekend and I don’t think it could’ve gone any better,” Ryan said.
Driving a Holden Commodore VF with AIM Motorsport, Ryan’s fastest lap in race two yesterday was 1:16:05 was one minute, 16.5005 seconds.
In the Aussie Racing Car series, a pile up caused carnage for the Hunter’s drivers.
A multi-vehicle pile up at turn seven caught up Charlotte Poynting, Cody McKay and Michael Sherwell. Sherwell suffered a leg injury but the other drivers appeared to walk away unscathed.
Shaun Martin was the only Hunter driver who managed to avoid the smash and ended up finishing fourth.
