Milestone man Chahda serious about title hopes

Matt Chahda has reiterated his goal of fighting for this year’s Dunlop Super2 Series title as he readies for round start No. 50.

Albury privateer Chahda made his Super2 debut in 2015, and will record his 50th round start in Perth next weekend.

Chahda will arrive in Perth just 54 points behind series leader Zak Best.

He will become just the fifth driver in history to reach 50 round starts in the second-tier series.

“The early years, we spent a while finding our way, but we worked hard to go racing,” he told Supercars.com.

“In recent years we’re turned into a proper team — we wanted to be fighting for wins, and now we are.

“It’s good to have our own car now — that's important when you’re full-on chasing the title, which is what we’re doing this year.

“With a car you can have free reign with — we bought this car to do what we need to — we can do our own thing.

On track in Newcastle

“Even in Newcastle, we had a few problems but we still made it work.”

Chahda joins all-time starts leader Aaron McGill (76 rounds) Geoff Emery (58), Marcus Zukanovic and Andrew Jones (57 each) as the only drivers to make half a century of starts in Super2.

The 29-year-old has gone on to become one of the most popular drivers in the series due to his family’s presence and privateer status in the paddock.

However, he has made major strides in recent seasons, and made a strong Bathurst 1000 debut as a wildcard in 2022 alongside Jaylyn Robotham.

Chahda finished a career-best second for the round in Adelaide last year, and finished fourth overall in 2021.

He rounded out the Newcastle weekend last month with third in the finale behind Best and rookie Aaron Love.

Driving a former Brad Jones Racing Holden Commodore ZB, Chahda is now eyeing more breakthroughs heading to Perth.

No drivers in the current field have ever experienced victory or pole position at Wanneroo.

“Perth is a pretty important one to have a good car. We’ll still be fast regardless, I’m confident about that,” he said.

The Chahda family, 2022

“We were compromised in Newcastle after my crash on Friday, we slapped some different shocks in the rear and we had dramas.

"We wound the spring back a bunch to get through qualifying, and we still salvaged some good results from.

“We were comfortably in the top third, then third on Sunday which was really good."

For the first time, the Dunlop Series will conduct races with no lap count, with races now running over a 40-minute period regardless of laps recorded.

The combined Dunlop Super2 Series and Dunlop Super3 Series fields will be on track twice on Friday April 28 for opening practice.

They go straight into qualifying on Saturday morning before Race 1 on the Saturday.

There will be one final qualifying session on Sunday morning before Race 2 on the Sunday.

Super2 and Super3 drivers will tackle two 40-minute races at next weekend's Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint.

All drivers will feature in a signing session at the grassed area near General Admission on Saturday (12:40pm-1:10pm).

Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint: Session times

All times AWST

Friday, April 28

Saturday, April 29

Sunday, April 30