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Ford star Matthew Payne and Triple Eight veteran Jamie Whincup led the times in the opening day’s practice sessions for Sunday’s Bathurst 1000.

But the talking point of the day was that Whincup’s teammate, points leader Will Brown, is looking at a tough weekend after co-driver Scott Pye smashed their Chevrolet Camaro at The Cutting late in the afternoon session.

“Young bloke, cold tyres…” said Pye, after causing the session to be red-flagged.

“I just lost the rear and it was game over. I feel bad for the crew, they will have a long night. It went in pretty hard but at the end of the day, it was my mistake. They have to work hard now to fix my screw-up.”

Payne looked very strong in the morning session with the best lap of the day, a 2m07.29s, leading a Ford 1-2 ahead of Tickford Racing’s Cameron Waters. Brown led the Chevrolets in third place ahead of Cameron Hill’s Matt Stone Racing entry.

Matt Payne, Penrite Racing Ford Mustang

Photo by: Supercars

Triple Eight Chevrolets topped the afternoon session, exclusively for co-drivers, which was delayed and then cut short firstly by an oil clean-up from a previous support event and then for the safe removal from the track of what appeared to be a brown snake at Forrest’s Elbow…

Whincup led a bloc of five Chevrolets, but not in the way many may have expected. Whincup, a four-time Bathurst winner, edged out rising star Cooper Murray, who is sharing T8’s wildcard entry with veteran Craig Lowndes. Jordan Ojeda was third fastest ahead of Erebus Motorsport teammate Todd Hazelwood and PremiAir Racing’s David Russell.

It was a big day with an early start in the Ford camp, six of the Mustangs getting new engines fitted with revised, GT3-based crankshafts; both Dick Johnson Racing and Grove Racing cars and one each of the Tickford and Walkinshaw Andretti entries.

The changes were necessary after a rash of unexpected recent crank failures that led to a world-wide search to secure the new Mexican-made units and a hurried 1000km testing program.

The WAU team had a setback on the track as well, with Lee Holdsworth missing most of the final session when the Ford he is sharing with Chaz Mostert was parked with an engine problem.

The Supercars will return to the Mount Panorama track on Friday for two one-hour practice sessions, the first at 10:05am Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time, and then at 1:05pm. The all-important 40-minute qualifying session, which will set the grid for the 11th to 26th fastest cars, is due to start at 4:15pm.

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Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Kyle Larson didn’t get to race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May, missing a race that contributed to him coming up short for the regular-season title.

His victory Sunday at the track solidified him as the championship favorite.

Larson led 62 of the 109 laps for his sixth Cup victory of 2024 as he cruised to the triumph on the Charlotte road course, a combination of the oval and an infield portion of the facility.

While Larson’s win wasn’t dramatic, other parts of the race — and postrace inspection — were as his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman was disqualified for his car failing to meet postrace weight requirements. The 38th-place finish for Bowman resulted in him not advancing to the next round of the playoffs. The team can appeal the decision, and the appeal would be heard this week.

With Bowman being eliminated, Joey Logano moved into the final advancement spot to the Round of 8 (NASCAR’s version of a semifinal round).

William Byron entered the race as the only driver locked into the semifinal round, where he will be joined by Hendrick teammates Larson and Chase Elliott; Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell; Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano; and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick.

Eliminated from the playoffs were Bowman, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe.

Takeaways from Charlotte:

Bowman Disqualified

Bowman thought he had advanced with an 18th-place finish, but his car was too light in postrace weights. 

“We are working to understand the issue and will make a decision Monday about whether to submit an appeal,” Hendrick Motorsports said in a statement.

NASCAR Cup Series rules require the car to be 3,400-3,500 pounds, depending on the weight of the driver. The team gets 5 percent — about 17 pounds — of tolerance after a race but the Bowman car still did not make weight.

The team was allowed to add fuel to the car and purge the water system and put in new water.

“We ran it back on [the scales] and unfortunately it was the same weight,” NASCAR Cup Series Director Brad Moran said. “The car had a weight issue. … That ends up in a disqualification.” 

Because of the possible appeal, Moran would not say how much weight the car was below specifications.

Larson Champ Favorite

The quotes might reek of swagger but they were more matter-of-fact as Larson now has twice as many wins as any other driver this season.

Larson: “The field knows that we’re strong. I think the field knows that we could win at any track.”

Crew chief Cliff Daniels: “[With] a very strong amount of respect for all the teams that are going to be in the Round of 8. Everybody has earned their way to get there. I think our No. 1 competitor is ourselves, and I think if we do the things that we need to do, our team can execute.”

The series heads to Las Vegas to open the next round, a track where Larson has won the last two races. He also has won at the other tracks — Homestead and Martinsville — in the round.

“We want to go to Vegas with a lot of confidence just in our recent run there,” Daniels said. “We’re going to have a healthy amount of respect for that race and ready for all of them.”

Reddick Rallies

Reddick, the regular-season champion, had hard contact with Hamlin trying to avoid Austin Dillon in the second stage. He had to pit several times for repairs and spent much of the event behind Logano in the battle for what they thought was the final spot (until learning about the Bowman DQ hours after the race).

Pitting for tires with 27 laps remaining while Logano didn’t want to give up his track position proved to be the right call as Reddick blistered his way from 26th to 11th, leaving him four points ahead of Logano, who dropped from fourth to eighth over the final 20 laps.

Reddick did it mostly clean but did have contact with Daniel Hemric in the hairpin turn.

“He just made a mistake,” Hemric said. “I knew he was on fresher tires. … Nothing egregious, just part of the chaos back there. I know he’s on tires and has to make progress forward but wished for a little more patience there.”

Beyond feeling bad for that mistake, it was a gritty performance for the driver for the team co-owned by Michael Jordan.

“That’s not exactly the plan of getting back to the front, getting together with fellow drivers you care about,” Reddick said. “But it’s racing. It’s a cutoff race. You’ve got to make aggressive moves and you’ve got to go for it. I tried to do it as cleanly as possible. … It was definitely a mistake.

“It doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It did. But we had to pass some cars.”

Cindric, who finished fourth, did as much as he could. Briscoe and Suarez had mechanical troubles. 

“I felt like within reason, without going over my head, the team called a great race, I felt I drove a great race — just not enough,” Cindric said. “I felt like we were great but not the best. So really cool to bring that when we needed it the most. But we needed to find another level to win.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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A decade is a long time in motor racing but, in the land of Supercars, it’s maybe a little bit difficult to acknowledge that the 2014 Bathurst 1000 did not happen just yesterday. Even for an event known for its great finishes, the 2014 edition was possibly the greatest. At a minute less than eight hours in length, it was certainly the longest, due to an unprecedented number of crashes, 10 safety car appearances and a 63-minute red flag period to repair a damaged racetrack.

Think of the unlikeliest of final laps storyboards you may have seen in Formula 1 history. Jenson Button winning from dead last in Montreal in 2011? Not even close. Riccardo Patrese spinning away a maiden world championship grand prix win and then reclaiming it in Monaco in 1982? Humbug.

What we saw a decade ago was the two cars that started last and second-last on the grid fighting tooth and nail for the win, with just two of the 1000 kilometres remaining – one of the teams begging, then cajoling, its star driver, after coming from a lap down, to ease off and save fuel. Right behind him, having driven from last not once but twice after the car was crashed by a co-driver twice his age, was a 22-year-old rising star, asking his team when the car in front was going to run dry. And the car that eventually did come second – which itself was crashed twice – took the flag looking more like race tape than automobile.

Times change but many of the players have not. Jamie Whincup was the man at the point of that race 10 years ago; he will be back this year, with the same Triple Eight team of which he is now a co-owner. The man who snatched the win away from him, Chaz Mostert, will be there too, now in a Walkinshaw Andretti United Ford Mustang. Second on that day, way back when, was James Moffat, then in a Nissan but now a Tickford Ford co-driver. Third place a decade ago went to Walkinshaw driver Nick Percat, who will race this time around for Matt Stone Racing.

For all those changes, and even if 2023 race winner Shane van Gisbergen has moved on to NASCAR, the name of the game remains the same: beat Triple Eight and you will likely be in the hunt for a win.

That was exactly the case at Sandown last month when the team’s Chevrolet Camaros dominated the 500km race, Will Brown and new co-driver Scott Pye edging out Broc Feeney and Whincup for a 1-2 finish. To rub salt into the wounds of the opposition, T8’s wildcard entry, piloted by the now 50-year-old Craig Lowndes and rising star Cooper Murray, finished fifth.

Mostert led home to a stunning victory at Bathurst a decade ago

Photo by: Daniel Kalisz / Motorsport Images

Mistakes will be crucial. Some of the fancied runners – Mostert, both Erebus Motorsport and Dick Johnson Racing entries – took themselves out of contention for the win at Sandown with self-inflicted mistakes or mechanical dramas, while the previously unfancied PremiAir pair of James Golding/David Russell took third place. Youth is all well and good but, sometimes, there is no substitute for a safe pair of hands.

There will be other curveballs. This will be the second Bathurst 1000 for the Gen3 Chevrolets and Fords, introduced at the start of last season. But at Bathurst a year ago the cars raced on the softer of Dunlop’s control tyres, which led to a build-up of marbles from mid-race and a one-line race track. This time the cars will be on Dunlop’s sturdier control rubber, but there will be another variable – a new, softer wet tyre – so if it rains, the teams will be driving into the unknown.

Most teams will have to take into account new driving combinations; of the 26 cars entered only seven will feature the same pair of drivers as a year ago

Likewise, there is a new Virtual Safety Car regulation to deal with. Even though it has featured widely in other forms of the sport, the VSC for Supercars was introduced only at Sandown, and it took some of the teams time to adjust their race strategies; how will they cope on the longest track on the calendar?

And then most teams will have to take into account new driving combinations; of the 26 cars entered only seven will feature the same pair of drivers as a year ago. Those are just the known unknowns, rather than the unknown unknowns, which Mount Panorama always seems to throw up.

Perhaps we will give the last word to the co-driver who took third place in 2014. Asked if he had ever seen a race like that one, he replied: “I’ve never even heard of a race like that one!” That driver was Oliver Gavin who, in his long career, had seen just about everything there is to see in motor racing. Bathurst can be like that – roll on this weekend’s 2024 edition.

With no van Gisbergen on the grid, who will strike gold at this year’s Bathurst 1000?

Photo by: Edge Photographics

After winning the opening stage by staying out, Tyler Reddick restarted deep in the field for Stage 2. When Austin Dillon spun in the tight Turn 7 just ahead, Reddick was entering the corner too hot and started to slide out of control. Reddick was slowed by slamming doors with his car owner and fellow Toyota driver Denny Hamlin, an act that lifted the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota completely off the ground and bending a toelink.

“Yeah, I thought I was gonna flip,” said Reddick post-race. “I think I was behind the No. 19 [Martin Truex Jr.] just trying to work the move to the inside. I got clear of him —  I saw the No. 3 [Dillon] spun and everybody was on the binders coming to a stop. Of course, me and my boss [Hamlin] get together. Felt like I was gonna do a front flip — this thing was absolutely destroyed. Just real hats off to everybody on this Monster Energy Camry. This thing couldn’t go four seconds of what the pace was. And we just kept working on it and we made it a lot better for Stage 3.”

The team managed to keep the car on the lead lap while fixing the damage to the rear of the car, replacing the right-rear toelink. He missed out on Stage 2 points, putting him in an uncomfortable position for the final half of the race.

It looked like he would be chasing aftter Chase Elliott for the final transfer spot, but he eventually got out of reach as the Hendrick Motorsports climbed up through the field. When Austin Dillon lost a wheel late in the race, it set up the final restart with 26 laps to go.

The final charge

Reddick’s crew chief Bill Scott made the aggressive call to give up track position and pit for fresh tires, restarting the race in 26th place, 14 points behind Joey Logano. The problem for Logano is that he was already running inside the top-five, so there wasn’t much else he could do pad his margin with one position equalling one point.

To make matters worse, road course aces A.J. Allmendinger and Shane van Gisbergen ran Logano down with fresh tires and pushed him to the backend of the top-ten.

Meanwhile, Reddick was flying. He nearly spun out with 20 laps to go, instead turning Daniel Hemric as the two cars collided in the same corner where Reddick crashed earlier. This time, Reddick escaped mostly unscathed. He continued his charge without hesitation. On Lap 100 of 109, he finally passed none other than his boss — Hamlin — this time without running into the side of him, finally moving above the cut-line with only nine laps to spare.

Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing, DraftKings Toyota Camry

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

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At the checkered flag, Reddick had driven from 26th to 11th on track while Logano fell back to eighth. By just four points, the driver of the No. 45 moved onward to the penultimate round while the two-time Cup champion was eliminated.

“It’s tough but you just got to stay calm, stay focused,” said Reddick. “In those moments, it’s so easy to lose track of what you can control. Either way, I was going to drive the car as fast as I could. It just worked out for us. This thing was able to get back up through the field and get us to the good side of the NASCAR cut-line.”

23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan, as well as Hamlin were right there to congratulate Reddick on his strong charge to the flag and surviving yet another week of playoffs eliminations.