WHEN Paul Morris won the 2014 Bathurst 1000, the odds seemed long that his son would one day follow in his footsteps to tackle the Mountain.

“I hated racing, I just was there to kick a footy around the pits,” Nash Morris recalled to V8 Sleuth.

‘Flash’ was 11 years old at the time.

When he eventually did take up racing, it was far from a conventional path to motorsport.

“I never raced go-karts,” said the late bloomer.

“Dad made me pretty much forge my own path, made me do my mechanical apprenticeship before I even got to drive a race car.”

And now, after a diverse on-track apprenticeship, the dream is real.

Morris Jr was last night announced to make his Supercars Championship debut co-driving with PremiAir Racing’s Richie Stanaway at The Bend 500. Four weeks later, they’ll contest the famed Bathurst 1000.

“I’m going to be racing against a lot of guys that knew me at that point (in 2014). It’s going to be pretty cool,” he said.

“It will be weird to race against Chaz (Mostert). He was obviously quite young when Dad won the race, probably a similar age to me, so I’ll probably make him feel a bit old!

Paul Morris, Tim Edwards and Chaz Mostert atop the 2014 Bathurst 1000 podium. Pic: an1images.com / Scott Wensley

“Richie too, he came up and did some stuff at Norwell I reckon in 2019 with my dad. Even then, I wasn’t racing, we just talked about video games and playing Fortnite, and now I’m racing with him.

“He’s a top level operator, you’ve seen him win races at Bathurst and Sandown, so he can do it. We have just got to get the car right and get everything in the right situation and it will be a pretty good opportunity for us.”

Morris won the 2021 Super3 title before graduating to Super2.

He stepped back after two rough seasons with the family team and crucially joined forces with Scott Taylor Motorsport – initially in Porsche Carrera Cup Australia, before together entering the Tickford Autosport stable this year for a Super2 return.

After claiming his maiden race win in the primary Supercars feeder series at Symmons Plains in May, he explained the value in having branched out on his own.

“I love my dad but we butt heads – he’ll agree with me. You get too emotional. It’s good just to go to a race team and it’s all logical,” he said.

Fast forward to now and Morris doubled down on Taylor’s influence.

Pic: Ross Gibb

“I probably wouldn’t be racing without Scotty. He has been a big backer, not only financial but on the mental side of the sport,” he said.

“Obviously when I was running my own car, it’s quite stressful, whereas he has put me in the right situations to show what I could really do.

“I went from running top 15 at max in a Super2 race to now running at the front and compete for the championship this year. So it’s pretty much all thanks to him.

“It’s pretty amazing just to tick the first box off and be making my Supercars debut but I still want to strive for more.”

What does “more” look like? A full-time Supercars seat, Morris elaborated without hesitation.

But for now, an interesting juggling act awaits at Mount Panorama as he goes between racing with Tickford in Super2 to against them at main game level.

“It will be strange,” he laughed.

“Obviously I will be competing with one team with Tickford from a Super2 point of view, then I’ll put on my PremiAir shirt and go down to that pits when I’m doing my main game stuff.

“But the cars aren’t really that linked anymore, they’re totally different, and as a Super2 team you don’t really see what happens in the main game team so I don’t think there will be any stress from that point of view.”