Kody Garland has made 38 overtakes en route to a podium finish in the opening round of the Aussie Racing Cars season.
The Motor Traders’ Association of New South Wales driver made a strong start to his weekend by earning fourth on the grid in qualifying despite encountering plenty of traffic through the session.
Garland was fighting for third early on in race one when he was hit by another driver, turning the #41 around and relegating the NSW local to 29th place. A strong fight back over the remaining laps saw Garland salvage a 17th place finish. In race two the charge continued as he expertly made his way up to seventh place, though Garland was credited with only ninth after the race was backdated a lap due to a red flag.
Race three was scheduled as a reverse top 10 grid, but that was scrapped by race officials and left Garland without the front row start he had earned. Nevertheless, the hard charger again proved his overtaking prowess as he raced up to the podium places with a third place finish, as one of the fastest cars on track.
The grid for race four was set by combined points from the first three races, with that again sending Garland backwards on the grid to eighth position. Unfazed, the 2021 series points leader set to work as he sliced his way to fourth place in just six laps. Unfortunately, the race was then cut short after seven laps due to the second red flag of the weekend for an incident at Turn 7.
“In the end I had fun this weekend, but we were on the back foot ever since we got hit in the opening race,” said Garland.
“We had the pace to be right in contention for race wins, we were matching times with Josh Anderson and Joel Heinrich who dominated the weekend. Unfortunately with the grid structure we just kept getting sent backwards so we had to retrace our steps a few times. If the reverse top 10 had gone ahead as planned for race three it would have changed our whole day on Sunday, as we’d have been starting on the front row instead of back in ninth.
“That race was pretty crazy in the end, we picked up a broken cross member which meant the steering wheel was in a different position each lap so that was an interesting challenge to navigate on a tight street circuit. Big thanks to Shearwater Engineering who were able to weld it back up ahead of race four.
“We figured out that I made about 38 overtakes across the four races, so it was a fun time and I’m glad we were able to get up onto that podium in race three,” Garland concluded.
Garland’s focus now returns to Supercheap Auto TCR Australia where he is placed seventh after a career-best result at the opening round in Symmons Plains.