Erebus confident Reynolds deal close

Erebus Motorsport general manager Barry Ryan has confirmed that the Holden team is close to finalising a contract extension with star driver David Reynolds.

Reynolds is off contract at the end of the 2017 but after an impressive start to the current campaign the parties are working to extend their arrangement.

Currently ninth in the standings, Reynolds recently told the FOX Motorsport Supercars Podcast he was hoping to remain with the team beyond his current deal.

Erebus currently sits fifth in the teams’ championship and third among the Holden squads despite new recruit Dale Wood languishing down in 24th in the drivers' points.

Though the team has improved its car speed significantly since its Holden switch for 2016, both parties believe there is more to come from the Melbourne-squad.

Ryan says that the length of the contract extension is the key factor yet to be resolved.

“We’re in talks with him now and I’d say it’s getting close to being finalised,” Ryan told Supercars.com of Reynolds.

“I don’t think there’s any fear we’re not going to work together over the next few years. 

“It’s just the decision we need to come to for what the term (length of contract) needs to be for Erebus as well as Dave. 

"I’ve never had any fear of us not working together.”

While Erebus was one of the few teams that opted against testing between the Winton SuperSprint and CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown, Ryan added the team is working on areas beyond developing its Commodores to improve performance.

“We’ve had a bit of car speed now we hope to keep rolling on,” he added.

“We need to sort out pitstops and pit equipment and make that side of the team better. 

“We’ve got a new pit boom and we’ve updated a lot of equipment and serviced a lot of it, which we’d let go of a bit when we focused on the cars. 

“We’re really confident and the biggest difference with Hidden Valley is we have confidence in more than just the car. 

“We’ve got a lot of things in order now which we needed to do to take the next step.”

Ryan pointed out qualifying performance as one area the team needs to improve before it can make the jump to be race winners on pace

“I think we’ve improved and we’re definitely up there, but we’ve got a bit of work to do to win races,” Ryan concluded.

“There’s not much room in the top 10 let alone the top five. Our target is keep in the top 10 and keep progressing and qualify a bit better.

“We can have a day like we did on Saturday at Winton, where if we qualify better we’re in for the race win, not just fourth, because we didn’t qualify well.”