{"id":737490,"date":"2026-06-15T05:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T05:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/737490\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T05:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T05:57:20","slug":"supercars-darwin-zach-bates-lochie-daltons-hidden-valley-reconnaissance-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/737490\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars Darwin: Zach Bates, Lochie Dalton’s Hidden Valley reconnaissance missions"},"content":{"rendered":"

TWO bright talents rising up the Supercars pecking order will head into their Darwin debuts boosted by low-key pre-event visits to Hidden Valley.<\/p>\n

Zach Bates<\/a> is ranked second of the five first-year drivers in the main game field, entering a venue where his Matt Stone Racing squad has form.<\/p>\n

The Canberran won\u2019t go in blind, having had the chance to familiarise himself with Hidden Valley in a Project Blueprint-spec Supercar prior to last month\u2019s Tasmania Super440.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a great opportunity to sample a track you haven\u2019t been to before you actually go there,\u201d Bates told V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

\"\"Zach Bates\u2019 Darwin livery. Pic: Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a traditional track that\u2019s been on the calendar for so many years, so it was great to be able to go there and drive an old Supercar, something not too far from what we\u2019re doing in Gen3 land. A big thank you to MSR for organising it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a similar story for Super2 equal points leader Lochie Dalton<\/a>, who broke up the four-month gap between second-tier rounds by taking part in a local Darwin meeting at Hidden Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt literally is like an off-season. I think it is bigger than the off-season we had,\u201d the Blanchard Racing Team Super2 driver told V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing was to have a strong first round, otherwise you\u2019re going four months basically dwelling on having a shit round. So having a strong first round keeps everyone motivated and on the right path.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThen it was just keep busy as much as you can throughout the break and whatnot which I\u2019m lucky to do with the GT4 Series with (Aaron Cameron<\/a>), that\u2019s really important, and then I\u2019m fortunate enough to have good partners who also love cars\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually snuck up and got a few laps in up in Darwin. I hadn\u2019t been there before, so I got a few laps in a Commodore Cup car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really cool, it was just a little local event through Brett Holdsworth, he organised it for me, so just cut some laps up there. It was good, just a good fun weekend and got to learn the track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dalton will race for Erebus Motorsport in the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship enduros, partnering Cooper Murray<\/a> in the #99 Camaro.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lochie Dalton. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TWO bright talents rising up the Supercars pecking order will head into their Darwin debuts boosted by low-key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-737490","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\/737490","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=737490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}