He’s a race winner in the Supercars Championship and one of New Zealand’s fastest racing exports – but this weekend it’s Ryan Wood’s time to shine on home soil against some of the world’s best young drivers.
The 22-year-old is part of a remarkably strong Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy (CTFROT) grid assembled at Round 2 of the NextGen NZ Championship at Hampton Downs.
The Hampton Downs international commences a flat-out four weeks of top-level motorsport that takes in both the North and South Islands and more than 10 different categories across the four events.
Wood is making his open wheel racing debut this weekend, driving for Mtec Motorsport, and ended his opening day behind the wheel the quickest of all, following three 30-minute sessions.
“The next four weeks are no break for me!” Wood said today.
“I’m really excited to be racing in the CTFROC championship, and yeah, starting my relationship with Toyota off well. It’s really exciting, something I’ve really wanted to do for a long time, and I’ve never ever done open wheelers before.
“So I’m feeling a little bit out of my depth, but learning lots. I’ve got really fast teammates, and they’ve raced so much in these cars and are really pushing me – and then obviously the rest of the field is really stacked as well.
“It’s really exciting. I’m really enjoying myself. It’s early days, and I’m already sore, but yeah, got a long four weeks coming up.”
As well as racing at Taupo (At the Giltrap Group Historic GP) next week, Wood said his season highlight is likely to be the NAPA 70th New Zealand Grand Prix at Highlands – New Zealand’s most prestigious domestic motorsport event.
“I can’t wait to go back to Taupo, it’s really special for me and a place where I got my first Supercars podium, so to be back there in a CTFROC car is going to be really cool, and hopefully we can get a trophy there as well.
“I’ve watched the New Zealand Grand Prix since I was probably 9 or 10 years old,” he added.
“I remember when I was at Manfield, I went with my grandparents and my parents, and remember distinctly what it was like and listening to the old cars on the rev limiter at the start.
“So to be now doing that championship and that race is going to be really cool come the end of the four weeks at a Tony Quinn track, and being a Tony Quinn Foundation member and having that on the side of the car and all my cool, really cool Kiwi sponsors is going to be super special.
“The goal is always to go there and win, and if we can do that on home turf, it would be really cool.”
Wood topped the third and final practice session of the day, his 1m29.764s benchmark the quickest lap time of the day. British young-gun Freddie Slater was second and Japanese driver Jin Nakamura third.
Earlier in the day, New York-based driver Ugu Ugochukwu topped the first practice session of the CTFROT season, while Wood then topped practice two.
Josh Bethune set the quickest time of the day in the Bridgestone GR86 Championship in the second of three sessions, Chris White topping both practice one in the morning and practice two later in the afternoon.
Cameron Jones was quickest of the stacked GTR NZ GT1 field aboard his fire-breathing Mazda RX-7 while Brady Wild, driving the ex-Simon Evans NZ SuperTourer, was second.
More than 30 cars make up the fastest GTR NZ grid, while more than 40 feature in the combined GTRNZ GT3 and GT4 grids, topped by BMW driver Matt Henney.
Action at the Hampton Downs International commences tomorrow (Saturday) at 8:30am with a free public pit lane walk – open to all NextGen NZ Ticketholders this weekend.
On-track action commences at 9:30am with CTFROT Qualifying, with the first of 15 races in the Trophy starting at 12:25pm.
Fans unable to make it to the circuit can watch on Sky Sport NZ from 12:00pm NZDT, or in Australia on Kayo Sports and Fox Sports from 10:00am AEDT.
All the racing action will also be available on the NextGen NZ Championship YouTube channel, as will CTFROC Qualifying at 9:30am local time.
For more information, please visit www.nextgennz.co.nz
Header Image: Tayler Burke/Shots By TayB
