CLAY Richards has confirmed his place on the TCR Australia grid for Round 2 this weekend at Symmons Plains.
The third-generation driver contested the Sandown season-opener on a one-round deal with Carl Cox Motorsport; now he’ll be back behind the wheel of the #4 Cupra at Race Tasmania.
TICKETS: Buy your tickets to Race Tasmania, Shannons SpeedSeries
It offers a welcome sense of continuity, Richards having made one-off appearances in an Audi and Peugeot last year.
“It’s a really great opportunity to be back in the Carl Cox Motorsport Cupra,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“At the moment, it still is a round-by-round process, just to get the funding together.
“We had such a good round at Sandown so it was sort of a no-brainer for us to try to work hard to make it to Tassie, which is what we have done.
“There is still plenty of work to do to try to do the full season, but we’re working hard.”
Richards sits sixth in the standings after finishing eighth, second and seventh in the trio of Sandown races.
“I surprised myself a little bit at Sandown with how competitive we were in the Cupra,” he admitted.
“I think my goal is if we can be able to advance to Q2 and sort of fight up the pointy end for qualifying, that would be a pretty good achievement and I do think it’s very possible… I’ve got a lot of confidence coming into the weekend and I can’t wait for Practice 1.”
V8 Sleuth understands it’s likely to be a 13-car TCR Australia grid at Symmons Plains, with Marcus LaDelle and Iain McDougall sitting out in the only changes from Sandown.
Richards meanwhile remains open to exploring other avenues, pending budget.
“At the moment we’re trying to put together as much funding as possible to do some kind of racing throughout the year, whether it’s a mix of different categories here and there,” he said.
“I’d love to be able to get some budget together to do maybe one round of Super2 this year but at this point in time that’s probably not likely at the moment. But you never know how the season can play out.
“We have got some really good support from Carl Cox Motorsport, Supercheap Auto, Woods Environmental Services and my other personal sponsors as well, so we have got a fair bit of support but we still need more, that’s the issue.
“At the moment I’m just enjoying racing for what it is because the next round is not guaranteed. We’ll see how it goes, we’ll just take it race by race.”
Track action at Race Tasmania begins Friday.
