Dick Johnson Racing

There were tiny glimmers of pace in really weird parts of the stint.

But I did speak to DJR team manager Tom Moore this evening and... they're just kind of at a loss as to what happened but effectively just no grip and as as tom very rightly pointed out and i think brodie pointed out on the broadcast as well like todd hazelwood isn't a four second slower than the rest of the co-drivers kind of driver like he's a good race car driver we know that um and Their suspicion has been around tyres, tyre quality in terms of a wet tyre.

They don't believe it's necessarily a batch issue, which we hear a lot about.

They sought a bit of clarification from Dunlop as to whether there were different batches at play.

Full display will be unveiled during a light episode of Motor Racing 360 on Wednesday, September the 9th, leading up to the weekend's event.

Now, the full collection, the Holden dealer team, Peter Brock, Holden A9X, Dick Johnson Racing, that's Dick Johnson's Ford Mustang Group A, the Holden dealer team with Peter Brock's Holden Commodore VK, Alan Moffat Enterprises, Klaus Niesewicz and Frank Pierdiomi, and that was a Ford Sierra RS500.

GIO Racing, Mark Gibson, Rowan Onslow in a Nissan GTR.

The Holden Racing Team, Craig Lowndes, his VTR.

Revived brittlesy remains the Super's biggest question mark following the rollout of the B-spec Toyota engines at Ipswich, which, as most, it suffered a bottom-end bearing failure.

The Ford camp is, uh, putting renewed focus on reliability following failures of Queensland in Grove Racing, Dick Johnson Racing, and the Triple Eight Mustangs.

Mm.

I think it's time for a, a quick break, mate.

They were in a Toyota.

And then in seventh place, Cameron Waters and Mark Winterbottom, Tickford Racing's Mustang.

Eighth is R- Ryan Gray and Tony D'Alberto, Dick Johnson Racing, again a Ford Mustang.

And then in ninth place, Anton De Pasquale and Lee Holdsworth, Team 18 in a Camaro.

He feels very relaxed, Zach.

And again, the end of last year was highly publicised, how he left Dick Johnson Racing.

Ryland Gray is there now.

Will has to take this opportunity with both hands because the last time he was a co-driver, Zach, he went pretty

He spoke to me about that at the test day and said, well, I've got a job to do, but I'm not really feeling the pressure.

But I think deep down every co-driver knows they've got a job to do and they will be feeling the pressure.

And just to underline how – the rate of improvement for Dick Johnson Racing this year.

Entering the Enduros last year, Brodie Kostecki had only won one race.

We're really excited to have Tom Moore with us today.

He's a team manager of Dick Johnson Racing, Shelby Power Racing Team, which is awesome.

And Tom's actually got a lot of history with us too, which is also really cool as well.

Some that we can talk about, some that we can't.

I find this thing entirely fascinating because, as you say, let's rewind to the lead-up to the Bathurst 1000 last year.

When I say the lead-up, I mean up until the Friday night of the Bathurst 1000 when we had the then-homologation team, Dick Johnson Racing, effectively trying to protest the entire race meeting based on the fact that this preliminary work into the barometric performance or the differences in performance based on barometric pressure, existed but no changes were implemented and all this sort of stuff.

And it really just felt inevitable that 12 months on, there would be some sort of solution based on the fact that there was some data there that suggested there is a difference.

And then fast forward to now, here we are in the lead up to the race at the time when this work really, you would have thought would have been completed or... that the politicking would be at its absolute peak in terms of trying to get changes made.

I wanted to take you back a little bit too and take a look at Dick Johnson Racing.

So we talk about Brodie and Todd winning at the bend last year, but have a look at this as a little bit of a stat.

When it comes to defending an enduro win, DJR generally hasn't been able to do it.

What about big Johnny Davidson there holding the cup? He's quite happy there.

He's got that trophy up and about.

So 1994, 1995, back-to-back Sandown 500 wins for Dick Johnson and John Bauer.

The picture is 1995, which was Father's Day that year, which was a nice touch because Stephen Johnson in the second car finished third with Charlie O'Brien.

But every time that DJR has won an endurance race, so Bathurst, Sandown 500, Queensland 500, remember with Ratisic and Steve Johnson, they've never backed it up.

So it worked really well.

I've actually, I've wanted to do this for a little while, TD, because you've been at DJR now 11 years and your first season there was actually as Mike Coey.

So we haven't known, and we've known each other since karting as well.

So it's good to have you on the pod, mate.

So I think that would be a realistic goal and probably, you know, without putting too much – expectation on our shoulders i think that would be a decent result but who knows i mean these races you know anything gets thrown at you and your day can either pan out really well or we can go pear-shaped pretty quick it's funny how first impressions are

so important right and rylan didn't come in and make this standout big splash because he was just the most green of all the rookies.

But I think people underestimate it because he won the Super 2 Championship, he's in DJR, so the expectations are immediately high.

But I was just thinking while you're talking there, he'd nearly have to have the most top 10 shootout appearances for a rookie now, wouldn't he, this year? Like it's going under the radar.

Yep.

Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood, Dick Johnson Racing, Ford Mustang, same couple as

last year.

Yep.

that I think will change over as the events go with co-drivers.

Yes, that's it.

Car 38 was Ryland Gray with Tony Dalberto, Dick Johnson Racing, Ford Mustering.

I wonder if Tony's related to the Kyabrin people.

Yep.

And, and especially when they were battling with Brodie and DJR, who haven't had the strength of a second car.

Rylan has been obviously showing a bit more lately.

Mm-hmm.

They had to go through a frantic change between the races.

He was really late getting out on the grid, like just within the nick of time for that race, and obviously he made a mistake and ended up in the sand in that race.

But those DJR Mustangs are, are pretty fast.

But for all of that, the biggest headline for Brodie for today was that unsafe release.