{"id":694573,"date":"2026-05-26T00:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/694573\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T00:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:34:15","slug":"tickfords-wildcard-set-to-miss-bathurst-1000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/694573\/","title":{"rendered":"Tickford&#8217;s wildcard set to miss Bathurst 1000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TICKFORD Racing\u2019s 2026 Supercars wildcard effort appears set to not include a return to the Repco Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n<p>The Melbourne-based Ford team is understood to be close to confirming its Supercars wildcard plans for this season, however the Great Race in October appears to not be on its radar this year.<\/p>\n<p>Last year it ran a Mustang wildcard in both The Bend 500 and the October classic at Mount Panorama for now Blanchard Racing Team Super2 and Erebus co-driver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2740-Lochie-Dalton\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lochie Dalton<\/a> and now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-250-Dick-Johnson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dick Johnson<\/a> Racing full-time driver, and 2025 Super2 Series winner, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2773-Rylan-Gray\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rylan Gray<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The team has a long history of wildcard entries for the Bathurst 1000 under various banners during its eras as FPR, Prodrive and Tickford Racing.<\/p>\n<p>It ran a Super Black Bathurst wildcard in 2014 for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-829-Andre-Heimgartner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andr\u00e9 Heimgartner<\/a> and Ant Pedersen followed by the Harvey Norman Supergirls program for Simona De Silvestro and Renee Gracie in 2015.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/tickford-racing-the-cars-2003-2023-book?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=buy-button&amp;utm_content=buy-button\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/tickfordracingthecars_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Not running a wildcard at Bathurst this year would be understandable given the team\u2019s existing workload of two entries in the main race and four cars in the Dunlop Super2 Series.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the team\u2019s Super2 pilots \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2802-Reuben-Goodall\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reuben Goodall<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2866-Ben-Gomersall\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Gomersall<\/a> \u2013 have been linked earlier this year with the Tickford Supercars wildcard program; Goodall linked to making his Supercars Championship debut at the Townsville round in July and Gomersall linked to making his at Queensland Raceway\u2019s round in August.<\/p>\n<p>Goodall is locked in to share the #55 Castrol car with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1293-Thomas-Randle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas Randle<\/a> at the AirTouch 500 at The Bend and Repco Bathurst 1000, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2-Mark-Winterbottom\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Winterbottom<\/a> to return and share the Monster car with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-58-Cam-Waters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cam Waters<\/a> for the Ryco Enduro Cup events.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/v8-sleuth-magazine-subscription?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=buy-button&amp;utm_content=buy-button\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/sleuth-subscription-issue-3_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Paddock sources at Symmons Plains on the weekend suggested Gomersall and another driver will compete in the Tickford wildcard in the 500-kilometre race at The Bend.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/tickford-racing-makes-supercars-chassis-swap\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The team\u2019s chassis swap for Symmons Plains<\/a> \u2013 where Cam Waters debuted a new Monster Energy Mustang and Thomas Randle moved into the chassis Waters started the year in \u2013 opens up the ex-Randle TR-26 car for wildcard use.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/frosty-mark-winterbottom-autobiography-book?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=buy-button&amp;utm_content=buy-button\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/frosty-autobio_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TICKFORD Racing\u2019s 2026 Supercars wildcard effort appears set to not include a return to the Repco Bathurst 1000.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-694573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694573","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=694573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}