WAU race winner up for auction
Walkinshaw Andretti United is heading back to the Dunlop Super2 Series this year with a pair of its Commodore ZBs, but another of the cars that sat alongside them in its Melbourne workshop last year is going down another pathway.
The team’s spare chassis not utilised last year – WR 024 – is part of the ‘UnReil Collection’ of race and road cars being auctioned this weekend by Lloyds Auctions.
The car has been returned to its 2018 #2 Boost Mobile/Mobil 1 livery as it won at Albert Park with Scott Pye behind the wheel.
Pye held off Jamie Whincup in fading light to win Race 5 of that year’s championship, his first and so far only race win in the ‘main game’ of Supercars.
It broke a winning drought for the team dating back to Sandown 2016 and was the first win in the team’s Walkinshaw Andretti United era.
The chassis was actually sold later that year as part of a Lloyds Auction back in 2018 on the Saturday night of the Bathurst 1000 when it was still being raced, under the proviso it would be delivered to the new owner once WAU no longer required it.
Victory for Pye in 2018
WR 024 finished second in the race at Mount Panorama the following day with Pye and Warren Luff at the wheel.
The chassis was raced by Pye again in 2019 and became Bryce Fullwood’s car when he joined the team in 2020.
Repaired after its crash at Bathurst in 2020, WR 024 returned to action in Fullwood’s hands in Darwin in 2021 and finished fifth that year at Bathurst with Luff co-driving.
It was retained as a spare by WAU for last season, though was not called upon for race duties.
It has since been returned to its Pye Albert Park livery at the end of last year when WAU’s need to have a standby ZB Commodore for its ‘main game’ drivers had passed.
The 2023 Repco Supercars Championship will commence in Newcastle on March 10-12.
Tickets are on sale on Supercars.com and Ticketek.com.
