RYLAN Gray will add another Blue Oval beast to his 2024 racing repertoire when he rolls out for his Touring Car Masters debut this weekend.
The 17-year-old has entered the TCM round in the Ford Capri previously raced by his father Jeremy.
It’s the latest opportunity to impress for the Tickford Autosport prodigy, who is this year regularly contesting Super2 and GT4 Australia in separate examples of Mustang machinery.
“Dad purchased the car probably a few years ago now and he spent a lot of time and effort getting it up to scratch. It’s been a journey,” Gray Jr told V8 Sleuth.
“He raced it three years ago at SMP and he did quite well and the car sort of suits the track, so I thought we’d get it out of the shed and give it a good run and see how we go on the weekend.”
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With a couple of test days under his belt, Gray is keen to knock off the 1m39.5533s his father clocked in qualifying when TCM appeared at SMP as part of a 2021 Shannons round.
“I’d say there will probably be a little bit of rivalry there. I will try to beat his time and then I can stick it to him for the rest of the weekend,” he laughed.
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For now it’s a one-off, but Gray has certainly enjoyed the chance to steer an old-school car which differs greatly to his modern Supercar and GT4 Mustangs.
“It’s actually quite a fun car to drive, a four-speed dogbox, a lot of power with a pretty small rear tyre to go with it,” he said.
“It’s quite different to a Supercar, just with Supercars having all of the aerodynamics, where this is just a really raw race car.”
TCM is one of six categories racing at the Sydney SuperNight (July 19-21), along with the Repco Supercars Championship, Porsche Carrera Cup Australia, National Sports Sedans, V8 SuperUtes and the TGRA GR Cup.
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