SUTTON JOINS TRANS AM

Former production car and Radical Australia Cup driver Chris Sutton will make his debut in the next round of the National Trans Am Series at Sandown Raceway in September.

Sutton has had success at national racing level previously, finishing as the runner-up in the Australian Prototype Series and as class winner in Radicals Australia Cup.

Recently Sutton has transitioned into production car racing in which he steers a Subaru Impreza WRX.

At Sandown however, Sutton will make the jump into the highly powered rear-wheel-drive Trans Am Series, after purchasing the Ford Mustang Peter Herd ran in the Bathurst round earlier in the season.

“What drew me to the category was the basic structure, there’s nothing super high tech about it and it’s a real seat of your pants style of driving,” Sutton explained.

“You can feel things through the chassis, I like feeling the rock and the roll of the car as well as the feel through the tyres.

“I’ve been watching the category for a while thinking they would be a bit of fun. They sound good, they’re pulling some decent lap times and I’m a bit of a V8 head as well, so Trans Am ticks a lot of boxes for me.”

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney the Sydneysider will have very limited if any testing prior to the round in Victoria, nevertheless he aims to be competitive.

“I’m ultra-competitive,” he stated. “I do want to get a good result; I do want to get a feel for the car, so I will try to get as many test days in as I can to get my head around the idiosyncrasies of these things.

“I’m sure I can do it; I just want to get out there and get into it.”

Sutton confirmed that he has already entered the season ending Trans Am 100 at Bathurst in November and is looking forward to getting back to ‘The Mountain’ after taking Class D honours in the 2017 Bathurst 6 Hour.

“We’ve entered for Bathurst, so that’s already done,” he said. “I’m looking forward to getting up there and just really getting through as many days as we can, gain data and see if we can make it the best we can.”

Sutton will sport a distinctive eye-catching livery at Sandown which can be seen on track from September 17-19.

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