Ryan Wood: Kiwi racer ahead of the Bathurst 1000

The Bathurst 1000 is next up in the V8 Supercars championship, and is set to begin at 1.45pm on Sunday afternoon. 

The 161 lap race at Mount Panorama is one of the great races in the world and New Zealand's own Ryan Wood is taking it on for the very first time.  

D'Arcy caught up with Ryan ahead of the weekend's action to discuss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talks. It'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Jerry points out, it's not just the player talents, the
coaching talents as well. Indeed, it is massive race this weekend,
the biggest and the bestest Bathurst one thousand next up
for the supercars. It's one hundred and sixty one laps
around Mount Panorama, and we're talking to Ryan Wood about
the race, about what he needs to do, how he's feeling.

(00:34):
The list goes on, Get.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
A Ryan, good mate, how are you good?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
The countdown is on? You think that the drivers love this,
the fans will be on fire. It's a huge Sunday
for all of us. But you'll be a little more pumped,
wouldn't you.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
It's a biggin yeah, exactly. It's obviously the biggest race
of the year and builds up over the whole year,
and then for us it builds up over a you know,
a couple of months and then all boils down until
a week of preparation and yeah, been up here since
Monday and just ready to get into it and tick
off our list of protocols before Sunday, and then yeah,

(01:13):
that the big day take its I guess take its
way to a certain degree.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
You don't say take it's toll. That means you're going
to stack it. You don't want to say that, don't
tempt feet.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well lucky I didn't say it.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Then bloody media. They rolled in that experience at Bathhurst,
but not a huge amount. You debuted in one of
the short versions of the race around around the mountain,
but not the not the long form. And that wasn't
so long ago, was it? What a year and a half?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, exactly. So I've done a little bit of racing here,
but my first ever one thousand was last year with
fellow KIWI Fabian Coulthard, so they were super special to
team up with someone with so much experience. So this
year looking to dwell onto that or use that and
with Jews and really try and make our prison spell

(02:02):
in the race and the sessions over the whole weekend.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
What obviously NFL walking shore AND's pretty racing. He's got
the MOBI one truck, assessed car. Now Euphabian's with you guys,
but he's not with you this time. Did you upset
him last year?

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Nah?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
He's obviously he's got a super cool opportunity to team
up with chairs and I'm looking to go and get
some redemption from a couple of years ago and try
and win the race. So for me, it's super exciting
to team up with Jews, someone an uh you know,
obviously experience, but younger and yeah, driving all the time,
so he should be nice and fast this weekend.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
You're going to stop using nicknames. His name's Jaden. What
do you just call him?

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Jeez Jada? Yeah, Jeez.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Jeeves is relatively experienced around that track now, I think
he's knocked off. What half a dozen goes around Mount
Panoramasee brings a lot.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, he does have quite a bit of experience and yeah,
managed to win the bead first six hour a few
times as well, So yeah, he's definitely not short of experience,
that's for sure what.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
You have to consider when you take on a race
like this. So obviously, as you grow older in your career,
more longer than the tooth, you'll understand a lot more.
But each year presents different challenges. What are they for
you this time around? Ryan?

Speaker 3 (03:22):
I think for us it's just letting the race come
to us. I think feel like last year, I probably
asked too much in the first half the race. We
were at such a long day and I just need
to make sure that you know, you let the race
takers control and yeah, just go with the flow. So
for us, it's just about being there in the last
hour and making sure we can be in the fight.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Was still to agree being there in the last hour,
but in this day and a just not just a
case of being you're going to be up there in
the last hour, don't. It's not already cruising anymore. This race
now it's.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
From me sprint sprint race the whole time, so makes
it pretty exciting and full on. But yeah, really cool
race to be a part of.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
So your relationship with green engineer is absolutely vital. It
is in the series full stop, but more than any
with this because he's got eyes everywhere, he can look
right across it, so communication with him is huge. So
what do you need to do first and foremost? What's
your major role as far as what information your engineer needs.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Well, he's got most of it over the telemetry, but
it's just about me giving feedback on the car balance
over the day and trying to tune that as the
day goes on. But we really set that up from
Thursday onwards, so we really try and make sure that
we put a great car underneath ourselves, and that sort
of sets up our weekends. So by the time the

(04:45):
race comes along, there's not a lot of chatting going
on between us and the engineer because of the day
is so hectic. But when I'm in the car, it's
just about him reminding me of all my markers and
everything like that and making sure that I just go
out there and do my job.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
That's interesting with the setup though, Ryan, because it's such
a long race. Your out there for such a long time.
How much is that the behavior and the performance of
the car. You've got the ties to worry about for
a start, but over the length of six seven hours,
what else can it Just what else do you have
to look out for?

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Well, it's just about not making mistakes. It's obviously around
such a hard track with walls and everything like that,
so you've just got to keep the car clean, try
not to you know, blister a tire or cut a tire,
and that's sort of not up to you. But yeah,
just making sure that you minimize your mistakes and execute
all your pit stops. Well, all your driver changes, So yeah,

(05:40):
it's just all those game of one percent as the
day goes on.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
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