STEVE Johnson enjoyed the challenge and nod to Australia’s motor sport heritage he got from competing in the Touring Car Masters series at Bathurst on the weekend, but he had something else on his mind as well.
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The man who already boasts 21 starts in the Bathurst 1000 is hoping the laps he did in the Touring Car Masters will help him secure a seat in next year’s Great Race.
“Obviously it is disappointing not to be in the 1000, but we are already working hard to get back in, get an enduro drive,” Johnson, who last contested the 161-lap epic in 2014, said.
“But if you can’t drive a V8, you’ve got to drive whatever you can. I am driving TCMs [Touring Car Masters], Toyotas, GTs, just to keep the race miles up so when you do get a chance in the main game for the enduros, you have got those miles under your belt.”
Johnson drove a Ford Falcon XY GTHO in the three Touring Car Masters races at the Bathurst round. He placed third in Friday’s opener, charged from 41st to 18th in Saturday’s reverse grid race and finished with a fifth on Sunday morning.
“They are awesome and some of the cars in the class are not too dissimilar to a V8 Supercar and how they have been built,” he said.
“To get out there and drive them, they are as hard, if not harder, than a V8 Supercar. To muscle these things around here, they’ve got a lot of horsepower, they move around a lot, you have got to be sharp and concentrate a lot to keep them straight.”
Glenn Seton won two of the three races and Colin Meadows the other.
