DEWALT Racing’s Mark Winterbottom and TRADIE Racing’s David Reynolds placed 17th and 24th in a challenging finale at the Taupo Super400.

Reynolds qualified 13th with Winterbottom 15th. Reynolds’ race quickly turned into a tough afternoon, with rising temperatures hampering the performance of the TRADIE Camaro for the rest of the race.

Winterbottom meanwhile had a clean race, but struggled for race pace and dropped back to 17th.

Team 18 will return to Mount Waverley and work to bounce back stronger at the Perth SuperSprint on 17-19 May.

RESULTS & QUOTES

Mark Winterbottom, #18 DEWALT Racing Team 18 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Qualifying: 15th

Race 8: 17th

“Great to be back in New Zealand.  The crowd here and the way they get behind the event is huge. It was a really tough track, like with all the surface changes and corners flowing to each other, high degradation. It was a really challenging weekend, but at points we were really good and at points we were really bad.

“I think in the wet, we missed an opportunity there, but in the dry that was all we had. We really struggled with pace, there’s no hiding behind it. We just weren’t good enough today, so we will go back, we’re continuing to work.

“I think we’re a team that’s going to have good days and bad days, but when you have a good run and you get a podium and stuff like that, you feel like you expect that every race, so we’ll rebuild, we’ll go home, get better and then we’ll go to Perth and try and turn around a bad weekend.”

David Reynolds, #20 TRADIE Racing Team 18 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Qualifying: 13th

Race 8: 24th

“The Sunday race, I had a bit of a drama, big steering drama. It was like a power assist drama, engine heating drama. There was a lot going on, I’d turn into a corner, the steering would lock up, and I’d just go around the outside, and other times I’d turn in to be super loose, and almost spin, so it was really hard to drive.

“We ended up a lap down, so all in all, It was quite an average weekend but we’re going to learn a lot.  We need to learn more about our car and each other. The three stop strategy wasn’t the best, so we need to really understand our numbers that we’re coming away racing with and figure it out better and really put our heads together and consolidate as a team and come back stronger and harder.

“We’ll roll onto Perth. Perth’s been quite good to me in the past, so I’m looking forward to it.”