MATT Chahda Motorsport has voiced a desire to use its Repco Bathurst 1000 debut to catapult itself onto the full-time Repco Supercars Championship grid as soon as next year.
Matt Chahda and Jaylyn Robotham will make their maiden Great Race starts next week in a Walkinshaw Andretti United-built, MCM-run ZB Commodore.
A fixture in the Super2 paddock since 2015, the Chahda family has not lost hope of graduating to the main game – quite the opposite, in fact.
“Deadset honest truth, I’d love to run my own main game team and I think we’re capable of doing it,” team boss Amin Chahda told V8 Sleuth.
Obtaining the last remaining Teams Racing Charter sitting on the shelf is the biggest hurdle standing in their way, Chahda believes, but he hopes a strong showing at The Mountain can help their cause.
“I keep saying to everyone: Let’s get through Bathurst, let’s put on a fantastic show and show that yes, we are capable of doing it and then we’ll start talking about next year,” he continued.
MCM has already completed its final pre-Bathurst test, from where confidence levels are high.
“After the two test days and the way I saw what the boys are capable of, I would say we are capable of being in the top 15,” said Chahda Sr.
With little more than a week until opening practice, the long-awaited dream is starting to feel very real.
“(Yesterday) I woke up at about 4am in just about a cold sweat,” said Chahda. “The emails are coming thick and fast now.
“It has been a dream of the whole family to do the 1000. I never got the opportunity when I was that sort of age when I was racing full-time, we just couldn’t afford it.
“I said to Matt, ‘if you want to do it, I’ll get you there’.”
Neither Chahda nor Robotham will contest the Super2 round at Mount Panorama.
“It’s a hard task for them to do both, physically and mentally. Physically they are probably capable of doing it, it’s mentally more so.
“We’d rather focus on the main game.”
