Reynolds Won't be Left Wondering This Time

Having spent the last 12 months including some sleepless nights pondering what might have been, David Reynolds has vowed history will not repeat if he finds himself in a position to win the 2013 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. 

The Bottle-O Ford Falcon driver finished just 0.3 seconds behind Jamie Whincup in the 2012 1000km classic, dogging the Triple Eight star for the last 10 laps of the race. 

But he never made a concerted attempt to pass, something he regrets now and has been asked about “thousands” of times since.

“If I had my time again and I was in the same position this year I would be going for a much bigger lunge,” Reynolds told v8supercars.com.au.

“I think about that race a lot,” Reynolds added. “I think if I did win how much my life would have changed… then I would be known as a Bathurst winner instead of a bloke who came second.”

Reynolds says he didn’t “win or bin it” as television commentator Neil Crompton urged him to do on the last lap of the 2012 race, because he believed the latter scenario would have played out; he would have most likely crashed out of the race rather than won it.

“It is easier to sit back and watch and say ‘maybe I should have had a go there or whatever’. I know that when I was in the moment driving there was nothing I could have done. I was doing everything I could possibly do to get past him. 

Reynolds has watched replays of the fateful final stages and knows where his one possible chance was.

“I watched it all unfold,” said the 28-year old from Albury.

“I was drifting back, James Courtney (HRT) passed me and pulled away and I thought he was going to win. And then he started having tyre dramas and I caught him. Then Whincup had fuel dramas and I started to catch him slowly and slowly.

“Then I was on him and I tried everything.

“I had one small opportunity that was a low percentage pass I guess you would call it. It was the last lap at turn two. I got a pretty good run onto mountain straight and I was slowly catching him in his draught and I should have tried my luck.

“I did pull out a little and try and I just could not make it happen there. He broke a little later and I had a bit more speed so it sort of evened up.”

Reynolds admits his desire to make a lunge at the Triple Eight Holden Commodore VE was tempered by his knowledge that second place would be a great result in the context of a disappointing season.

“You assess the whole day in the last stint and you think ‘we have had a good day and I don’t want to throw it all away just going for the win’.

“We hadn’t had a decent run all year except for that race; we had good pit stops, no dramas, no nothing and I thought we were in a position we should have been many times throughout the year, but it never eventuated until Bathurst.

“But now looking back if I won it would have been so much better.”

Reynolds admits he does a lot of ‘looking back’ on the 2012 Bathurst 1000, including during some sleepless nights.

“Sometimes yeah. Sometimes you get a bit of anxiety, but I think everyone lies in bed thinking about how to better themselves and better their life. That was one of them, there are many things that come up that time of night.”

Reynolds goes back to the mountain in 2013 with Dean Canto as his co-driver once more and with the circumstances of the season proving similar to 2012.

“We have had a fast car but nothing has sort of happened in the races for us because various things have happened. So hopefully Bathurst can come together for us again.

“It is a good race because everyone relaxes and it’s a long day and even thought it is a high pressure one, they are nervous but relaxed about it.”

Reynolds, who has freshly re-signed with Rod Nash’s operation for two more years, has yet to break through for his first V8 Supercars win. Four drivers, Fabian Coulthard, James Moffat and rookies Scott McLaughlin and Chaz Mostert, have broken through in 2013.

Reynolds did come home first in the first half of the Darwin 60/60 Super Sprint but that is not credited as a race win.

From 4.30pm AEDT today, Reynolds will have control of the V8 Supercars Twitter account, to answer questions from fans. Make sure you use #Reynoldstakeover and follow @V8Supercars to talk to last year’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 runner-up.