Wood works on pace at Symmons

Fighting to establish himself back in the V8 Supercar Championship, Dale Wood heads to Symmons Plains next week for the first time since 2009 and one of the low points of his racing career.

Driving a Kelly Racing Holden Commodore back then, Wood clashed with James Courtney in the Sunday race at the Tasmania venue and – fairly or not – was widely blamed for the incident.

Wood lasted just one more Championship event that year before being replaced in the car.

“I probably didn’t deal with the media that came from that (clash with Courtney), especially the comments that came out that I was wasting my parents' money,” Wood told v8supercars.com.au. “My parents supported me in my early karting days and that’s where it stopped.

“I took those comments really personally, but I understand there are things said in the heat of the moment. 

“But I don’t think about it now. It’s behind me, it was a bad situation, but it was a long time ago and there’s been a lot of water go under the bridge since then.”

A determined Wood has rebuilt his racing career through a series of endurance drives and winning the development series in 2013. This year he returns to the V8 Supercars Championship at the wheel of a Brad Jones Racing Commodore, alongside star drivers Fabian Coulthard and Jason Bright.

“I am like a dog with a bone I guess,” he said. “I am very passionate about the sport and I love it. And I don’t know when to say ‘stop’ or ‘no’ and maybe that’s what is needed to succeed at this.” 

However, Wood’s resolve continues to be tested. He was involved in three front-end crunching incidents in his Team Advam/GB Gal Holden at the Clipsal 500, although two out of the three were not his fault.

Now his Commodore is in for serious repairs at BJR’s Albury shop after an unavoidable collision with Chaz Mostert’s factory Ford Falcon in Race Three at the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix.

Grafting a new front-end onto Wood’s car follows on from the BJR crew having to build up a brand new BOC Commodore for Bright after his spectacular Clipsal 500 roll.

“The last thing I wanted to do was create more extra hours leading up to Tassie, so I really do feel for the crew and hopefully I can repay them come Tassie and start working on getting some strong results,” Wood said.  

The flipside of the Tyrepower Tasmania 400 for Wood is the tight Symmons Plains circuit was also the place where he did his best work in his short 2009 stint, qualifying 17th out of 30 starters for that fateful Sunday race. That gives him confidence he can start pushing forward into the midfield. 

“I go there confident in my engineering crew, knowing they support me and that I have a good car,” he said.

“I would like to get close to the 15th mark,” he confirmed. “If I could qualify around that spot and race around there then I would be happy that I am making the steps that I want to take and closing that gap to my teammates.

“The first people you want to beat are your teammates and I have two bloody rippers there. I can’t speak highly enough of them. They have been supportive of me, we have clicked and got on well and I know they are top four guys. I have good guys to learn off and I need to close that gap and be able to mix it with them.”

If he can continue to post results in the top half of the field as the year progresses, the 33-year from Melbourne believes he can then secure his seat for 2015.

“It’s a one year agreement, but I have a great group of supporters around me who understand miracles don’t happen in one year and they are very good about that,” he said.

“But there is only one year on paper at the moment so the most important thing is me doing the job of proving I am worthy of getting a second year at it and going from there.”

Tickets are available now for next week's Tyrepower Tasmania 400, which begins March 28.