Missing grid ‘gutting’ for rising star

For Tyler Everingham, watching on as the 2020 Dunlop Super2 Series got underway in Adelaide at the weekend was nothing short of “gutting”.

The teenager announced himself as a talent to watch with a stellar 2019 season to back up his Super3 title from the previous year.

Everingham placed sixth in the Super2 standings last year for MW Motorsport in a campaign headlined by a shock win at Sandown and a front-row start at Bathurst.

He picked up the Mike Kable Young Gun Award, an honour previously bestowed upon future Supercars champions Marcos Ambrose, Rick Kelly, Mark Winterbottom, James Courtney and Scott McLaughlin.

It became clear in the off-season that Everingham wouldn’t return to MWM, who later announced Thomas Randle, Zak Best and Jayden Ojeda as their three drivers.

Everingham instead was expected to pop up at Anderson Motorsport, the Bathurst-based team that ran Ojeda in Super3 last year, which took delivery of a Walkinshaw Andretti United VF Commodore ahead of the season.

However, factors including the damage bill from a monster qualifying crash at the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour led to the deal suddenly falling apart.

Before long, the 13-car grid for round one in Adelaide was released without Everingham’s name, the Dubbo product confirming on social media he would be an omission from the series.

Speaking to Supercars.com, Everingham admitted it was tough to watch the Superloop Adelaide 500 season-opener from afar.

“Sitting down and watching them at Adelaide is pretty sad,” he said.

“We’d been trying pretty hard to make the grid this year but just unfortunately things didn’t work out.”

Of the Anderson Motorsport deal and the impact the 12 Hour crash had: “To see the car in person, have a seat fitting and everything done… and then have to back out of it pretty quickly is pretty gutting.

“There’s multiple factors but that [crash] was definitely a contributing one.

“At the end of the day, you can’t miss out on seat time – it was a risk to do the 12 Hour but that’s the way it goes.”

Everingham is now on the search for other forms of racing to contest in order to “stay a bit relevant”, knowing it takes only a couple of performances to put his name back on the map – as he had done with his Sandown success.

With his dream still to become a Supercars driver, he’s not ruling out the possibility of a cameo at some point this Super2 season.

“It could be a possibility but I’m not too sure. We’re just going to stand back and have a look and see what we can and can’t do really,” he said.