{"id":403848,"date":"2026-01-10T09:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/403848\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T09:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:01:17","slug":"2026-was-now-or-never","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/403848\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 was now or never"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZACH Bates<\/a> admits it was now or never to make his Supercars graduation in 2026.<\/p>\n

The Canberran\u2019s chance has come with Matt Stone Racing aboard the #10 Bendix Camaro, after his future had for a time appeared uncertain.<\/p>\n

Bates\u2019 apprenticeship included dominated in Toyota 86s, winning the Super2 title and, lastly, shining in a Triple Eight\/Supercheap Auto main game wildcard.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it has been a long road for not just me but all our partners, family and everything like that, so to now get to this level is really exciting,\u201d he told V8 Sleuth, six weeks out from the Sydney season-opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to everyone who has supported me. Now the hard part starts, as they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got there but now racing these guys week in and week out is going to be very challenging but something I have always wanted to do. It\u2019s going to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Had the MSR seat not fallen his way, it might\u2019ve just about been game over for the popular 21-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think when you look back at it, in 2023 I was teammates with Woody (Ryan Wood<\/a>); he went on to graduate and has been doing an excellent job but I needed that extra year in Super2. I absolutely did.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2024 we had a fantastic year with the Walkinshaw crew and then probably at the end of that, I hadn\u2019t had any main game experience which the likes of Kai Allen<\/a> and whatnot did and they leapfrogged into the series after that year whereas I had to stay another year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Triple Eight wildcard experience was truly epic. I feel a lot more comfortable coming into the series now after that program, so a huge credit to them with all of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a long road\u2026 it was definitely now or never because there was no way that I was going to do another year not in the main game level. I\u2019m definitely ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult because there\u2019s obviously not a huge amount of seats out there, so when this came up, Matt (Stone) approached us, we were really excited to work together.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s the time to show what myself and MSR can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZACH Bates admits it was now or never to make his Supercars graduation in 2026. The Canberran\u2019s chance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-403848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}