Wood well clear in warm up
By Thomas Miles
Date posted: 14 September 2025
Ryan Wood has topped the morning warm-up as all eyes turn to the AirTouch 500 at The Bend.
Beautiful cloudless skies greeted the Supercars for their last on-track session before the 102-lap race in the afternoon.
WAU was the pacesetter with Wood firing a 1:50.5964, which was a comfortable 0.2356s clear of Tickford rookie Rylan Gray.
David Reynolds was the only Camaro in the top six, which was rounded out by Chaz Mostert, Thomas Randle and Cameron Waters.
A slow zone rehearsal again took place in the opening minutes of the warm-up, with turns 7-10 the zone of the simulated accident.
Once the trail was complete, teams had 15 minutes to go through the procedures to prepare for the race.
Driver changes and refuelling stops were at top priority, with the co-drivers getting plenty of seat time.
The WAU teammates were the first into the 1m50s window with Wood leading Mostert by three tenths.
Meanwhile, there was no one else within half a second for the first 10 minutes, with Tander and Pye leading the train.
Reynolds was the first non-WAU driver to record a 1m50s lap, and was soon joined by Gray and Randle.
While Wood’s time remained unchallenged, there were still several flashpoints throughout the session.
The scariest was a close call between Tony D’Alberto and Lochie Dalton at turn 1.
The DJR #17 driver was on a push lap, but encountered the Tickford wildcard rejoining the lane and had to lock up to avoid contact.
The likes of Jack Perkins and Aaron Seton locked up at Turn 6, but stayed on the black stuff.
The action was not just limited to the track, with some cause for concern in the lane as well.
Grove Racing took longer than they would have liked performing a front left brake change.
Front-row starter Cameron McLeod was released with a loose passenger door and was forced to stop at the end of the lane briefly.
The only car that was hardly seen was the #99 Camaro of Cooper Murray and Jobe Stewart.
Erebus was so confident in their preparation that the rookies did just two laps for the entire session.
Now the stage is set for the first-ever AirTouch 500 at The Bend at 13.45 ACST.
Image: Peter Norton
Practice 1: 1: A. Cameron/Z. Best 1:50.0617 2: T. Randle/Z. Best +0.0283 3: B. Kostecki/T. Hazelwood +0.3358
Practice 2: 1: Jamie Whincup 1:50.5875 2: Todd Hazelwood +0.2082 3: Dale Wood +0.3248
Practice 3: 1: Will Brown 1:48.9957 2: Broc Feeney +0.3210 3: Thomas Randle +0.3837
Practice 4: 1 James Moffat 1:50.7387 2 Lee Holdsworth +0.1864 3 Rylan Gray +0.2128
Practice 5: 1 Ryan Wood 1:49.2867 2 Brodie Kostecki +0.0272 3 Broc Feeney +0.0584
Qualifying: 1 Brodie Kostecki 1:49.3947 2 Broc Feeney +0.0081 3 Cameron Waters +0.0628
Top 10 Shootout: 1 Broc Feeney 1:48.6548 2 Cameron Hill +0.1023 3 Brodie Kostecki +0.1286
Warm Up: Sunday 9.30-9.50
Race 26: Sunday 13.45-17.18 102 laps
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