Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / Darwin Triple Crown daily: Friday
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to the Friday edition of our daily podcast from the 2026 Better Darwin Triple Crown. Stefan, that was a weird day at Hidden Valley because after all the talk yesterday about the bursting sunshine and all that sort of stuff, it was grey. It rained a little bit. It wasn't quite cold, but it definitely wasn't the sort of Darwin heat we're used to. That was that was a weird one. It was weird and I shouldn't have made fun of you yesterday on the pod for ⁓ having a jacket here because I needed one today. Yep. But you had to get a loaner jacket. I did. Yeah. So ⁓ not what we expect. Is it really classed as wet weather though, if no one ran a wet tyre? No, no, I I guess it's not. But even just the sensation of any rain falling when you're in Darwin is not something I've ever experienced before. ⁓ or was ⁓ yeah. quite prepared for and ⁓ and as you say I did have I do have all those jackets on board. They were ⁓ not much used to be at the Airbnb when we were at the track. It's actually the media centre that was really cold, not the once you were outside it was okay, but still like a long way from a typical Darwin day. But appropriate because a drought was broken. Well very good. Cam Waters. By Cam Waters. The jokes keep coming. And he finally got one and he did it in pretty good style. He did it in style. I mean that start was incredible. ⁓ the way he got off the line there. And I guess that kind of set things up to a large extent because he went from the outside of the second row to running second behind Brody Kastecki very, very quickly. Well it was good to be able to see him at the start of the race 'cause the the issue has been that he's qualified too far back all this year. His race pace has actually been pretty good. Yeah. So he said afterwards that he he had a good feeling from practice one, obviously when he topped the session. Probably not such a good feeling in the first couple of minutes when he was facing backwards on the front straight after looping it. Yep. But ⁓ he was just trying not to get too excited after practice, but he really felt like that they'd had something click and ⁓ yeah, second row in calling. And then he was all over Brody from the start of the race. Yeah, he really was. They they made the right strategy call. I mean, the way that race played out, we sort of saw as you do with these one stoppers, you know, some people Go nice and early and hope that they can ⁓ sort of undercut a little bit and then hang on to the tyres towards the end. They sort of went a fair bit longer than some of the other cars around them in that first stint. And that proved to be the right strategy to go on. Even in those cooler conditions, there was still high enough deg that you did run out of pace at the end of something I spoke about. ⁓ with David Reynolds after the race, they were among the earlier of the stoppers with both of their cars and they sort of felt by the end that that was the wrong call and it was something that Jack LeBrock talked about on the T V as well. So that was so Tigford just got it right and put Cam in a position by running a bit longer than Brody to win that race. Well I guess the world really opened up there for Cam because ⁓ Anton Di Pasquale who'd been shuffled back to third off the start there, he pitted and then the next time by Brody was called in seemingly to cover that. But he'd been struggling for pace and holding the pack up. So it was like Christmas for Cam when ⁓ when Brody pulled into the pits because ⁓ yeah, they they reacted by not reacting basically and just pressing on for another dozen laps and knew straight away that their pace was was pretty good versus the seventeen, even though the seventeen was out there on on a newer tire. But he still was gonna have to overtake. Brody in that stint on the run home. Yeah. And ⁓ I certainly wasn't the only one surprised that ⁓ Brody just let him have it. Yeah. Just to cover off some of the background noises you might have heard, ⁓ listeners, we are in a bit of a sharehouse arrangement this weekend and there was some sneezing going on. So apologies for that. yeah, what else do we just to come back to Brody. It was an odd race for Brody in the way that ⁓ he obviously was struggling for pace. ⁓ But it's unusual to see Brody so sort of compliant in battle when it comes to a faster car coming up behind him. He usually loves to try and be as disruptive for whoever's trying to pass him as possible, even if he knows it's inevitable they're gonna get past at some point. Or I think in most cases he facks himself to, you know, make it not such an inevitable thing. But we kind of just saw him letting quicker cars go by today. Yeah, sort of an unusual twenty four hours For him, we saw that he wasn't at the track to town on Thursday evening. Todd Hazelwood ⁓ stood in for him because Brody was was unwell. And then this morning ⁓ they had a throttle body issue with that ⁓ seventeen forward that cost him a bit of practice time. But then he does what Brody does and goes out and polls it. Yep. Fourth pole of the year, most of anyone now at four different tracks too. So that's really impressive. Yep. ⁓ and then yeah. he said after the race that he knew pretty early he was in a world of hurt, but normally that's when he really gets the elbows out. Yeah. When the chips are down and ⁓ makes it very difficult. So ⁓ yeah, he just didn't didn't have the pace and didn't even end up on the podium because those two Grove racing guys flew by him in the run home too. Yeah, they were another couple of cars that played the strategy ⁓ pretty well. ⁓ I think Matt Payne would probably be bit disappointed at the start that he lost a bit of ground there because he started ahead of Kyo, right? Yeah, but he had a slow pit stop. That's what cost him. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So then that was sort of formation flying from there. Yeah. ⁓ but they yeah, they got on the right side of the strategy as well. They were on the right strategy there. They always seemed to be on the right side of the strategy. Credit to them. Yeah. And for them, doing an overcut was no ⁓ no new thing. Yeah. ⁓ we saw Anton running near the front, ⁓ well, well into the race. They were part, as I said before, along with Reynolds, part of those sort of early stoppers. He faded back to sixth behind Will Brown. ⁓ in the end, I think given the fact that, and we'll talk about the David Reynolds ⁓ situation ⁓ in terms of his clash with Jack LeBrock, but I reckon that team is probably going to be disappointed with what they've actually got out of that race in terms of a sixth and a 23rd, given the fact that you know both cars started in the 10 and were running in the ten towards the end of the race and Anton had kind of been in the podium mix for for part of that race. But the flip side to that is I reckon that's a pretty good position for that team to be in to be disappointed with results like that and a race playing out like that. Yeah, and to see Anton on the front row was no surprise. ⁓ especially here where they've gone gone well in the recent past. ⁓ the other Chevy guy in qualifying who was impressive was Jaden Ojada, who put it fifth on the grid. But ⁓ Man, those starts again really costing him the start and first lap no good. And he probably did well to actually salvage a ⁓ top ten out of it in the end. He did a practice start during practice and then did a practice start during practice starts at the end of it and kind of said after the session that he felt like he was starting to get his head around it and he just he just kind of ⁓ didn't execute when it mattered and it's just the start yips are a thing, like there's so much pressure in that situation. The last thing you need in your head is like, I have to get this right, I have to get this right, and it just feels like it's the it's starting to become one of the last missing pieces for Juice to become a really competitive supercars driver. Cause I said ahead of this weekend I felt like he could go well this weekend just based on how quick the Chev package usually is in Darwin, how good premiere have gone in Darwin in the past and the momentum that he carried out of ⁓ Tasmania. ⁓ and yeah, apart from from that element of it. It was a very impressive day for it. Yeah, well in Tassie we saw him have that really good breakout qualifying performance on the Sunday. Yeah. And had the start issue and fought through still to get sixth. But the good thing this weekend is it's only Friday. He's got another two two cracks at it yet to ⁓ try to get a result. ⁓ let's talk about a few people that didn't have a fantastic day. Actually no, let's finish with another one that did. Macaulay Jones, tenth, ⁓ for BJR. That was a That was the best BJ Arca. He got ahead of Andre who was in the top ten in in qualifying. ⁓ so that's a pretty impressive ⁓ performance from Macca. Yeah, so not a standout day for the Toyotas in general. Chaz ended up being the best of those guys in seventh after Woody had ⁓ paced them in in qualifying, but he went really early on the stop. Yeah. And then was hurt. He was one of the ⁓ maybe the first to stop. Yeah, I think I think he was. ⁓ but his other headline from the day was ⁓ the dive on Kai Allen during Q2. What did you make of that at the last corner? Yeah, I mean it's it's I I get the I get the theory that he wanted to get back to the pits to get ready for the next run, knowing it was going to be tight. But it's in qualifying you just can't bank on people being glued to their mirrors. If they haven't been told that it's a car starting a lap or anything like that, there's a good chance they're not expecting someone to do that. ⁓ and they're going to turn into the corner. when you try to fire it in there. So but he was pretty upset about it. Yeah, and I think Kai, ⁓ he spoke about it in the press conference at the end of the day and described it as a bit of a woody thing to do. That is an excellent line. That's very good. Good job, Kai. That's that's good. All right, let's move on to people that didn't have a great day. ⁓ hard to go past Brock Feeney. Like it just never had pace at any point. You know, the the guy that clean swept Darwin last year, ⁓ such a good qualifier, just didn't get the job done in qualifying. You always still back triple eight to get something out of the race. He was complaining about straight line speed during the race over the radio. You spoke to Jamie Wink up. ⁓ after the race, what was their take on the fact that they're you know, that Brock Vidney could only manage fourteenth? Yeah, Jamie just said that they didn't have the balance right on that car all day and ⁓ that for him explained the the qualifying and the race performance. Obviously in the race they did four ties so they tried to do something different because they were back a bit and unfortunately Brock had locked a front on the outlap and sort of dribbled off at turn one which didn't help his race either. But it's again like you look back to Simmons Plains and they started the weekend poorly ⁓ and then really built through that. Yeah. I ⁓ asked Jamie about that and he was like, Well, it's not too much of a trend because it hasn't happened everywhere. But ⁓ there were certainly some people who thought that the fact you only got one practice session here before getting into the serious stuff wasn't gonna help Triple A, considering they are attacking each track with a Mustang for the first time. Yeah. Tommy Randall, not a great day for him to be down in fifteenth when your teammate wins the race. That's always, you know, it's not a fantastic look. I wonder if he'll be ⁓ asking for one of those shiny new cars like ⁓ like Cam Waters has. Well, it was the new chassis Grand Prix at the front, 'cause Cam's car's in its second round and Kai's car's in its first round. Yeah. Yep, so there you go. But anyway, yeah, that will be a bit of a tough one for Tommy to ⁓ to take. I think ⁓ BRT kind of just anonymous today, I guess, which is something probably this time last year we wouldn't have been highlighting as something worth talking about in a podcast because that was sort of where they were dabbling in the field. But there's just been these flashes and reasonably consistent flashes of speed across the first. portion of this season that it was kind of weird to just see them comp like not even a factor at all. Yeah, qualifying in the twenties and ⁓ James Golding finishing eighteenth, one place behind Camo. But ⁓ when he's in the mix trying to ⁓ get a finals berth, James is now down to ninth in points. ⁓ so sort of slipping towards that cut line. But the guy who is one place out is Jack LeBrock. Yeah and he hurt his own chances there with the with the move on David Reynolds. Yeah, he ⁓ he said on the broadcast that he kind of obviously Woody was struggling, Reynolds was struggling a bit and he kind of fancied his chances of getting two for one ⁓ in the closing stages there and and and just overreached a little bit and and it was a clear like he just tipped Reynolds into a spin when you watch the ⁓ when you watch the footage. So ⁓ he apologised that there were no arguments about the 15 second penalty that he copped. But obviously when Reynolds car wouldn't re-fire And Reynolds said it was weird, it kind of the engine wouldn't actually die. Like he lost the engine, so it wasn't still running, but it wasn't not running, and he had to wait. He said it was still sort of turning over, and he hit the kill switch and then had to wait for it to actually properly stop. And then he tried to, as he put it, bark it back up. And as he hit the button, there was obviously like a lot of fuel in there. He said there were flames coming up the side of the car, and he said it was all pretty interesting. In that time they threw a safety car, which ultimately proved unnecessary, but The car had been sitting there for a while, so not you know, that that that probably was the right decision in the exact moment until it wasn't, microseconds later. But that safety car really made that fifteen second penalty hurt for LeBrock. And that is the sort of situation why race control doesn't always go safety car straight away. But we have seen some things this year that I would reckon means that race control is going to be a bit quicker on those yeah ⁓ in virtual instances. Yep. Absolutely. All right. Anything else you want to talk about? No, I think that ⁓ does us for today. Perfect. All right. Well we will be back tomorrow evening with the Saturday edition of the daily podcast. And make sure you stay tuned to speedcafe.com all day tomorrow 'cause we'll have all of the race reports, session reports, news, reaction, everything all on our website.