Gun duo working to fire as winning unit
TEAMWORK is key to climbing the ladder.
It is the mentality that Erebus duo David Reynolds and Anton De Pasquale are taking into the second weekend of the Townsville Supercars double-header.
And they got a timely reminder of it yesterday as the pair worked out with the troops of the 4th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery in a training session. While there was a friendly competition between the troops, De Pasquale said what impressed the most was the camaraderie.
“They all support each other and they all respect each other. It is a good competition, but it is all about teamwork,” he said.
It is the same for the Penrite Oils Racing duo. While they compete head-to-head, success will only come when both sides of the garage work together. Reynolds has the one-lap pace to match it with the front garages of pit lane, while De Pasquale has shown his race pace edge.
“We had two different things going on, Dave was qualifying better than me but my race car was going good,” De Pasquale said. “We had opposites going on. We have a week to work out why, how and all the things in the race. If we have a car that qualifies like Dave’s and races like mine, we probably have two podium cars.
“Because these things are back-toback, it is like having a big test session and you can go back with what we have learned.”
But it is not just what is happening out on the track where the Erebus teamwork has been tested.
It has also been in the garage, with Reynolds’ engineering set-up facing an overhaul ahead of last weekend’s NTI Townsville Supersprint.
With Reynolds’ long-time engineer Alistair Mcvean stuck in Victoria due to the border closures, it was team boss Barry Ryan standing in on the radio for the No 9 Holden.
But the team went for a shake up ahead of the Townsville double-header with data engineer Tom Moore stepping up to the plate.
It is understood to have made a more clean line of communication in the Erebus garage, with Moore acting as a conduit between Mcvean and the driver.
“We have had some engineering shuffles in the team. We are on top of that now. You have to start again so it will take a little bit of time, it will take a couple of goes to get it right,” Reynolds said.
“Young Tom Moore has stepped into the engineering role, he has been doing the data for my car for a long time. I think with Al being at home, it is a really perfect opportunity for him to step up and understand the engineering of the whole car and running the whole car.
“He has Al in his ear the whole time, they are working together and we are working together.
“It is working out for us, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There was a lot of miscommunication going on and now it has been rectified.”