Clay Richards' Race Report: 2022 Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series - Round 1
Return to News

Clay Richards' Race Report: 2022 Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series - Round 1

By Shannons - 11 March 2022

The first round of the 2022 Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series was held at Eastern Creek Sydney on the weekend as a support category for the Supercars Championship. This year is my second year in the series and I'm more excited then ever to compete in the five round championship, I showed some really good pace at Bathurst last year so I was really looking forward to getting out on track for the first practice session.

Dad, Mum and I left our home in Melbourne on Wednesday night and travelled to Gundagai for the night before carrying on with the rest of the trip the following morning to the track for setup day, the forecast predicted rain for the whole weekend I've never driven the car in the wet conditions before so I knew this weekend was going to be all about learning how to drive the car to the wet conditions, the tyres we run on the 86 are a semi slick tyre which is used in both wet and dry conditions but although they are not a proper wet tyre so they have very little grip in the wet, this was something I had to get my head around.

Friday was our first day out on track with two 20 minute practice sessions. Both sessions were wet and my focus was to just try and learn the wet racing lines and where to position the car, in the first session I pushed a little too hard and lost the rear of the car and went off track into a tyre barrier, the good thing was I sustained no damage other then a couple of lightly bent panels. Practice 2 I struggled to gain back my confidence after the shunt in practice 1 and placed 19th.

Qualifying and race 1 was the schedule for Saturday it was the frist time the track was dry for the weekend and to top it off the best lap times would come on the first and second lap due to the conditons of both the track and tyre it was going to be tough seeing as it was the first time the track was dry for the weekend. I placed 19th out of 37 drivers I was a bit disappointed as my best lap came on my 6th lap although my best first and third sector was on some of the early laps, if I put all my best sectors together I would have qualified in the top 10.

Race 1 was on in the afternoon, again it was a dry track and I was keen to make up some spots, I had a really good start and made up two spot before turn 1 I also got a close call when two drivers got together at turn 2 right in front of me I avoided all the carnage and pressed on, not long after the safety car was called out, we spent some time under the safety car while the accident at turn 2 was cleaned up it was about half way into the race where we got started again I made up a couple of more spots once again but another accident behind me caused another safety car, we would eventually finish the race under safety car and I crossed the line in 15th.

Sunday was our last day of racing we woke up to the sound of heavy and continuous rain when we got to the track even some of the garages next to us were flooding the water was about ankle high and in some garages deeper then that we got one of the lucky garages as our one did not flood anywhere near as much as some of the others. Our first race of the day was scheduled to be at 8:30am but due to all of the rain some parts of the track were flooded we we're eventually told the race 2 was cancelled and we would get our third race at 11:30am, and hour later we got told that all of a sudden we had to be ready and on the dummy grid in 2 minutes luckily for us Dad and I did all the prep on the car the night before so we we're ready to go. Race 2 was wet and I got another good start I was still lacking a bit of confidence in the wet conditions and struggled with my pace, after a few safety car periods I crossed the line in 13th.

Race 3 was dry in some parts of the circuit and wet in some other parts, starting from 13th I got another good start I was starting to get more and more comfortable in the wet and dry conditions and was soon in a battle with some other cars, I crossed the line in 14th with a safety car free race and at times running lap times in the top 5.

As much as I thought the weekend was a bit average I look back now and see a lot of positives it was a challenge to learn how to drive the car in the wet conditions for the first time but I feel like I've made a massive step forward from the start of the weekend.

A big thank you to everyone for the on going support thoughout the season our next race will be at Phillip Island for the 2nd round of the Formula Ford Championship as a support catergory for the Speed Series, I'm really excited for this round as the last time I raced there I won the third round of the Victorian Formula Ford Championship and it's a track I reall enjoy driving on. Keen to give it a crack.