Winterbottom and Reynolds in to the shootout in Darwin

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DEWALT Racing’s Mark Winterbottom and TRADIE Beer Racing’s David Reynolds made it through to Saturday’s Top 10 Shootout for Race 11 after qualifying third and seventh today at the Darwin Triple Crown.

Cars hit the track for Practice 1 in the morning, where Winterbottom and Reynolds ended 6th and 20th respectively after the one hour session.

Both cars were on the pace come qualifying with Winterbottom posting the third fastest time of 1:05.8427, with Reynolds only one-tenth behind with a 1:05.9563.

Saturday’s action sees Practice 2 at 9:35am, the Top 10 Shootout at 11:35, followed by Race 11 at 3:10pm. All the action can be viewed live on Channel 7, Fox Sports and Kayo.

RESULTS & QUOTES

Mark Winterbottom, #18 DEWALT Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: 6th

Qualifying: 3rd

“We rolled out of the truck really quick. It was really quick and when you’re in the window, you just tinker away. We got through a good program. I’ve been trying to copy Dave’s car from practice, he copied my car and got in the ten, so both cars are correlating really well.

“I think we can still make it better. The competition’s so tight. You’ve got to do a good lap to get in the ten, but not make a mistake and push it around.

“My car’s quite easy to drive at the moment, which is good. But to go fast, you need to lean on it a bit more, which could bring a mistake, but could be faster, so we’ll see what we’ve got tomorrow.

“We came from Perth and we’re struggling so when you’re going well, you’re going to appreciate it, work out why, and replicate it. When you’re going to struggle, you’re going to work out why, and try and fix it. It’s not by any means fixed, the recipe or the formula, but you’ve got to milk it when the car is there because it’s not like this every weekend, and everyone’s in the same boat.

“Tomorrow’s going to be a good day. Hopefully we’re battling for the lead but there’s still a lot to go and the field is so tight.”

David Reynolds, #20 TRADIE Beer Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: 20th

Qualifying: 7th

“We rolled out okay, but there was a few parts in the car that we wanted to try that were really good from the test day, so we bolted them in, and something went amiss in what we put in there, and the car wasn’t equal and we only found that out after practice, so we actually probably wasted a lot of the session rolling around trying to figure it out even though we were confident in what we were doing.

“We rolled into qualifying with all the setups and everything that we were confident in and it was much better straight away. We rolled out much more on the pace and much more confident in our setup and we stayed in the ten.

“Mark’s done a good job today. He’s ended up third and that’s the first time all year the cars have been in the shootout.

“It was quite hot today. You know, the boys I noticed coming in every session, they were sweating. That’s something that’s going to be a bit of a factor. But a good thing is about,  our category is now we’ve got three different types of tyres, which demand three different types of setups and that’s why the order’s always changing and some of the cars that were fast last round aren’t fast anymore so it’s actually good to see.”