forcing Wood to forfeit second place and head to the pits<\/a>.<\/p>\nAt one point he was out of the car, helmet off, contemplating that both his Great Race and finals hopes had disappeared all at once.<\/p>\n
But around him there was a frantic effort to get the car back into the race and get Wood the classified finish he needed to bank just enough points to keep his season alive.<\/p>\n
That effort included pulling bits off Mostert\u2019s stricken motor just in case they were needed, multiple power cycles on Wood\u2019s motor and an agonising wait to see if they could even get to the offending connector that had filled with water and caused the failure.<\/p>\n
When the car did finally fire up the roar from the garage was immense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we saw today was the strength of a team that actually will just never, ever, ever give up,\u201d WAU CEO Bruce Stewart told Speedcafe on the Sunday evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we realised the car was out there was a massive punch in the guts. But everyone just mucked in and we worked out the numbers that he could still qualify for the finals if we could get him back out there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were several times it looked like it was gone. Our guys were just working on that car, relentlessly trying to find the problem and then work out how to fix it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then when it fired to life, that was a rainbow in a shit day that and we were just like, far out. That roar, when it fired, it was like we\u2019d won. Everyone knew what it meant. And there\u2019s nothing like hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo right now I feel like I\u2019ve been on a roller coaster, because you\u2019ve been punched in the guts, and then you\u2019ve just seen how fucking awesome your team is at never, ever giving up. And that\u2019s the stuff you just can\u2019t buy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI reckon we\u2019ve come out of it richer. I don\u2019t know how to define it, but it\u2019s pretty bloody special.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to speak in cliches, but far out, I\u2019m just fucking overwhelmed by how that all ended up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new-for-2025 finals series means that instead of a low-scoring Bathurst 1000 ruining its season, it heads to the Gold Coast with two cars every much in title contention.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly Stewart is a fan of the new system \u2013 and feels an in-form Wood could be a \u201cscary proposition\u201d for the run home, which could add even more significance to that Bathurst 1000 salvage effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s bloody marvellous,\u201d said Stewart. \u201cGod bless what\u2019s happened there. The entertainment is great, it\u2019s breathed life into the whole championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the hunt. Obviously everyone knows the quality of Chaz and how good he is, he is an elite talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Woody has been amazing in showing his growth. He\u2019s only 21. More importantly, he is a scary proposition for everyone in the finals, because the kid is super quick.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like Chaz. He\u2019s mercurial and he\u2019s a pied piper for our team and like Chaz he pulls his crew around him, and everyone wants to do anything for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cChaz is the best driver I\u2019ve ever seen at that, and he\u2019s got his protege just absolutely doing the same thing. Just look at what we just saw. Wow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WAU crew during its salvage effort on Ryan Wood’s season. Image: WAU Instagram The squad\u2019s Bathurst 1000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,13401,213,22210],"class_list":{"0":"post-83905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-ryan-wood","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wau"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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