Reid ready for some fun at Oz enduro event

Former A1GP star Jonny Reid will make his Australian GT Championship debut at this month’s Laser Plumbing & Electrical Hampton Downs 500.

The 34-year-old forged a strong international career in the county v country A1GP series as well as stints in Indy Lights, Supercars and other categories in Europe, Asia and domestically.

He stepped away from professional racing in recent years but will team up with Neil Foster in an Audi Ultra R8 to contest the 500km endurance race in one of three International Motorsport entries.

“I’ll be in one of those having a bit of fun — that is what I call it these days,” Reid told the Herald. “It’s a way just to keep enjoying my driving.

“It’s endurance racing, so it’s two drivers, one car for these races, which are three hours long.

“There are bigger races coming up potentially with the Bathurst 12 Hour, so it’s a good lead-in for that.”

The pair teamed up to run second at the South Island Endurance event in Christchurch last month — a performance Reid was stoked with. He took particular joy in seeing Foster improve and turn out what Reid describes as “the best race I’ve seen him do”.

Despite that success, he isn’t expecting huge returns at Hampton Downs.

“Some of these guys we are up against are racing a lot more than me these days. It’s the first Australian GT event that Neil and I have got involved with.”

With GT racing taking off around the world and the possibility of competing in that format at the Bathurst 12 Hour or even the planned 12 Hour event at Hampton Downs next year, Reid is keen put his best foot forward.

“I would look at that,” he said. “There’s no real desire for me to get back into racing at any professional level. It’s more just about having fun and driving alongside guys like Neil in a team environment at International Motorsport.”

Speedway

For the third time in three summers, Vodafone Springs Speedway will have a new clay surface.

The traditional red clay used over the years at the Western Springs track ripped up too easily and didn’t cater for the American-style slide-job passing which has become a trend in the sport. The decision was made to use the soil in operation at Waikaraka Park three years ago but that created too much dust, so a call was made to replace it this time last year.

The organisation that prepared both Westpac Stadium and Eden Park cricket pitches was employed to install clay that had proven successful in cricket. While that worked perfectly from a dust point of view, it was too hard a compound and meant cars chewed through their tyres too fast.

So a mixture in use by the Huntly track has been agreed upon and work is being done to have it ready for the season-opening event on November 4.

“We are bringing a material up from Huntly that is a mixture of all three soil types,” promoter Greg Mosen told the Herald.

“We are hoping this is going to provide the race surface we have always hoped for.

“It is not going to tear up tyres because they have it down at the Huntly circuit and it doesn’t tear up tyres there.

“It is not dusty — it shouldn’t be the way we will prepare it.

“This is one we can water through the night and [produce a track] that will suit all the different classes we have so that all the drivers can put on the show we want them to.”