Testing miles in an S5000 have given Kody Garland the advantage ahead of his first race around Winton Raceway, for round three of Supercheap Auto TCR Australia.
Winton is one of Garry Rogers Motorsport’s home tracks where the team regularly venture for their test days, however Garland’s experience around the circuit is limited with only a handful of tests at the venue since joining the team in 2022. Most recently, Garland cut laps around the country Victorian circuit in of GRM’s S5000 machines.
“It’s always a huge thrill to get behind the wheel of the S5000,” said Garland.
“The lap times are around 10 seconds quicker than what we’ll be doing in the TCR, so there’s not a lot of transferrable traits between the two. However, I’d say it will make those first couple laps in the TCR this week feel a bit slower than they are, which should make it all a lot smoother for me to build into the weekend on the front foot.”
Garland sits eighth in the championship after two rounds, 66 points adrift of the series lead. The roller coaster season thus far has seen the Valvoline driver claim a maiden TCR podium at Symmons Plains before a challenging weekend at Phillip Island. Crucially, Garland has finished every race so far which has unsured he remains within striking distance of the leaders heading to what’s expected to be a closely contested weekend.
“In hindsight we overreacted a little bit to our struggles in Friday practice, which set us back for the rest of the weekend,” said Garland.
“While I haven’t raced at Winton before, the team knows the track probably better than any other in the country so there’s a great platform for all four of us at GRM to start the weekend from. We all know what to expect as well, passing is traditionally very tricky around there and we’re likely facing the most important qualifying session of the year.
“Winton is not to dissimilar to Symmons Plains in terms of what you need to extract from the car to go fast. Obviously that weekend in Tasmania was my best in the category so far, so there’s a fair bit of excitement about what we can produce this round,” concluded Garland.
Round three of Supercheap Auto TCR Australia takes place as part of the Shannons SpeedSeries at Winton Raceway from June 9-11. Stan Sport will carry live coverage of qualifying and all three races, in addition to Saturday afternoon coverage live and free on the Nine Network.