VOLUME 6 feature
Photography by Josephine Carter
5 MIN READ
“I give it a ten-out-of-ten Yelp review!” Sam beams from under her borrowed race helmet. She’s a GAZOO RACING CLUB member who – along with nine others – won a hotlap around the circuit with either Harry or Lewis Bates behind the wheel. We caught her doing an excited jig before strapping in. So it’s nice to hear Lewis earned a decent star rating.
We’re here to celebrate the official launch of the 2022 TGRA 86 Series. It’s a chance for younger racers to get in some lap time before the Townsville leg of the competition and hear some track prep advice from top drivers like Broc Feeney, who cut his tin-top racing teeth in a Toyota 86 back in 2018. It’s also an opportunity to get a glimpse of what’s in store for the future – the jet-black pre-production GR86 model that’s parked behind the Pit Building. It’s displayed, pride of place, between a white GR Yaris and Harry Bates’s GR Yaris AP4 (fresh from its muddy rally win in Canberra).
Broc Feeney chatting to TGRA 86 up-and-comers.
NEIL CROMPTON
We’re told at a press conference that the team at Neal Bates Motorsport have already started work on the GR86 race package to get it ready for competition in 2024. They’re promising to leverage the new-generation improvements and the bigger 2.4-litre engine to build a lighter, more powerful and more agile race car.
But that doesn’t mean the older 86 models will be put out to pasture. From 2023, there’ll be a new scholarship series. It’s an entry-level competition where aspiring drivers will compete in front of an expert panel, who’ll pick those with the highest potential and offer them a graduate place in the GR86 comp.
As series manager Neil Crompton puts it, the TGRA 86 Series has always been about “the concept of grassroots motor racing and enabling drivers to make a proper start at a professional level”. Part of that is keeping costs down. So they’re still committed to subsidised entry fees, standardised specs and a one-tyre rule so “the emphasis then goes to the driver, not about whether you’ve got the credit card to be able to go buy some more grip,” he says.
Getting in that lap time.
PHILIP
James is a mechanic and ex-go-kart racer who says he appreciates the emphasis on grassroots racing. He’s here with the GAZOO RACING CLUB, and flashes us his foundational keyring while we break for lunch. He explains that he gave up on competitive racing after go-karts, partly due to the cost, and he’d consider entering his GR Yaris in a TGRA 86 Series competition if they ever set one up.
At the next table, another club member named Mark is sitting with more competition winners. He tells us he’s happiest driving his GR Yaris up the Pacific Highway or taking it out on the track.
Pit lane practice.
Phillip says he recently tracked his GR Yaris for nearly five hours straight with no problems. “No one else would do a homologation special, it’s just too expensive,” he adds. “It’s a purist car, an enthusiast car. And the reliability is unbeaten”.
Christian says he owns both the GR Yaris and the Rallye edition. He grew up in the motorsport industry and tries to keep his GR Yaris pair low kms, because he sees them more as collectors items. But if he were to take them on a road trip, he recommends heading north of Woolongong where the roads get nice and winding.
The opener was a chance work on strategy as much as technique.
“I’m not very deep in the car world,” says Jacqui, an exercise physiologist who likes commuting all around the city in her GR Yaris and entered today’s GAZOO RACING CLUB competition on a whim. “But I do like the idea of being in the club and having a really nice community, and all the people I’ve met have been so helpful and friendly,” she says.
“I’m a manager for a retail store, so when I called my boss and told her I need the day off to get to Sydney Motorsport Park she was a bit shocked,” Sam laughs. “But I’ve grown up loving cars and my sister loves four-wheel driving so we’re both into supposedly masculine hobbies”. Sam says she hasn’t taken her GR Yaris out on the track yet. But she’s had it for almost a year now and is getting pretty keen.
JACQUI
Pole-position preparation.
Neil Crompton told us that ever since Toyota 86 chief engineer Tetsuyda Tada threw down the challenge to create a more passionate, affordable and accessible way to do global motorsport, that’s what the TGRA 86 Series has strived to be. Judging by the enthusiasm of the young racers and our chats with club members, the ripple effects of this ethos are well and truly being felt – more space for a car culture that’s as much about community as it is competition.
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