IT wasn’t his side of the garage but Scott Pye has opened up on his joy at seeing Team 18 finally enter Supercars’ winners’ circle in Darwin.
Pye is now into his fourth season at Charlie Schwerkolt’s squad, and he was previously responsible for all three of its podiums since it went to a standalone model in 2016.
The 33-year-old actually was right in the hunt for a win at last year’s Adelaide 500 before things unravelled, and ultimately it was teammate Mark Winterbottom who got the job done from third on the grid this month at Hidden Valley.
An emotional triumph, Pye said the team-wide elation outweighed any sense of jealousy.
“No doubt we’re all racers and we want to win individually for our own self-benefit, but everyone here has worked so hard and I saw Frosty’s interview and the emotion there, I can feel that as well,” Pye told V8 Sleuth.
“It has been a really challenging road and you see Charlie’s emotions as well, what that means to him.
“That’s because this sport is not easy, we all respect how difficult it is to be here.
“If I can’t do it though, of course I want Frosty to win… I didn’t have that opportunity and I’m absolutely stoked that Frosty was the one to get a win.
“Obviously selfishly we’re all racers and we want to get our own win but right now, that meant so much to them.
“Charlie has been unbelievable, I mean the effort that he has put in to finding people and putting sponsors together, we have some of the best sponsors in pitlane.
“I’m just stoked, I think everyone needed this boost and it also shows that we are capable of doing it because sometimes people need reminding of that and Frosty did that and the team did that.
“My results, I have been very close a few times, a few podiums with the team but it has been a long time now. We just need a little bit of luck on my side.”
Pye does have a Supercars Championship race win to his name, from 2018 at Albert Park when he was with Walkinshaw Andretti United.
Team 18 manager Bruin Beasley revealed to V8 Sleuth that a solution to unlock drive had been a gamechanger, and off-contract Pye has felt progress ever since a post-Perth test day.
“I had a huge improvement at Tasmania and I think we would have had three top 10s there (if not for a car issue) which would have been a big step forward from where we were in Perth,” said Pye.
“We could have nearly had three top 10s again (in Darwin) but it didn’t fall my way.
“And that doesn’t sound like much but what you need is the small steps in the right direction and I think that’s what we have done.
“We have got a lot of events coming up that we need to back up performances before we really know if we’ve turned a corner but I do think we are heading in the right direction.
“We’ve made some gains, the team has improved massively in the pitstops, so we go to Townsville where we have been strong in the past and hopefully we can repeat somewhat Darwin.
“But for sure Darwin has always been a strong event for this team as well, so I don’t ever get ahead of myself.
“I look at now the next event and there’s no guarantees on past performance that we’ll be quick; you need to turn up at every weekend and hope and pray that you have worked hard enough and you end up at the front.”
