carsales Drive-Thru car chats with David Reynolds
Portrayed as the clown prince of Supercars, David Reynolds is in truth a far more complicated character. He’s passionate about many things, including cars...Supercar fans are traditionally a partisan mob. There are very few drivers that are (almost) universally liked and admired. David Reynolds is one of them.
Sharp, funny and willing to call a spade a spade in an arena where there’s plenty of managed spin, Reynolds seems to have the uncanny ability to bridge the Holden/Ford, red/blue divide. Perhaps that’s because he most often wears his heart of his sleeve. When Dave’s racing well, he’s got a smile a mile wide, when his Erebus Penrite team isn’t firing the way it should, it’s not hard to see his pain.
But underneath the game face and joking persona, there’s a canny, smart athlete who is far from the stereotypical one-dimensional car racer.
Dave has strong opinions on the future of motorsport, road safety and everything from politics to cryptocurrencies. On this occasion, on the eve of the biggest race of the year, the Bathurst 1000, we grabbed time out of his preparation simply to talk cars...
What is your earliest memory of cars?
"I think I would have been very, very, very young – like three or four, possibly. One of the dentists that was working for my dad, Nick Megalakis was his name, he used to have a Mazda RX-7. I remember it coming up the driveway. I was so, so young, but I thought 'That’s a cool looking car'.
"And I ended up getting one – isn’t that weird? It had to have been something related to that first memory from when I was super young because even my brother got one at one point... We both had one."
Reynolds dad was a keen rally competitor. It’s his cars that Dave also remembers.
"Dad had a couple of rally cars. He had a MkI and MkII Ford Escorts, that were really loud, fully caged, all set up for rally driving. He used to drop me to school in it and I used to go to school hanging on the back of the roll bars because there was no backseat. It was so cool.
"And then he had a 323 Familia – one of the first four-wheel drive, turbo cars that he rallied as well, and that was cool.
"His MG TD used to run on leaded fuel. I used to love the smell of leaded fuel – probably explains a lot about me."
What was your first car?
"My first car was a Mazda RX-7 Series 1 and I’ve still got it. I bought it for $1000 bucks when I was 15 and I literally spent my schooling years on it. Did it up to how I sort of semi-wanted it until I ran out of money and moved on with my life.
"But it’s sitting in my mum’s shed and I haven’t driven it since like 2006. It needs a bit of work done to it to get it going again. But, I’m struggling with, no time."
What do you drive at the moment?
"So at the minute I’ve got a new Holden Commodore VXR. I love it. It’s a fantastic road car... Does everything for you: seat heaters, seat coolers, DISTRONIC [adaptive cruise control], drives itself, lane assist, all that sort of jizz-jazz. It’s just really easy to drive and comfortable.
"It’s probably one of the best Commodores they didn’t ever make [in Australia]… It’s very, very different to the old Commodores. It’s more European and just drives very easily and it’s perfect, perfect for what I need."
Road safety is a subject dear to Dave’s heart and pre-COVID he kicked off Curb the Rage, an initiative to target and decrease road rage.
Racers are known as hot heads on the track, but Reynolds says he’s anything but off it... He admits to some bad habits behind the wheel, however.
"I’m a terrible speeder, really… Yeah, that’s probably my only real bad habit, I think. But it’s ingrained in my spirit and my childhood and my life… I can control it but I seem to always be running late to things. If I organise myself and leave early, I don’t tend to speed that much, or at all, really.
"So my advice is to leave early. Just like when the forest fires come -- leave early."
Have you ever taught anybody to drive?
"I continually teach my girlfriend [Tahan Lew Fatt] to drive and she does not listen to my advice - as she regularly makes me aware. I’m a terrible backseat driver with her, but she needs to be reined in on the road.
"There was a scene, like a year ago. We were pulled up at this T intersection and this old lady was driving past and I didn’t really see and I went to go and I stopped and then the old lady slowed down and like gawked at me and was looking at me like I was doing something stupid. And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry’. And my girlfriend started yelling at her from the passenger seat and then leaned over into my driver’s side, to press the horn. And I was like, ‘What are you doing?’"
Albury born and a Melbourne resident, Reynolds is currently on the Gold Coast with a substantial contingent of the Supercars paddock. As this is written, he’s due to fly to Bathurst with his 2020 co-driver, Will Brown – with Brown at the controls of his own light aircraft. Does that qualify as a road trip?
"Will’s going to be flying us, otherwise it might have been a road trip. My longest road trip was probably with Tahnny when we went from Albury to Gold Coast during the coronavirus border closures when we moved up here with Supercars.
"That was probably 14 hours? It was long and my girlfriend’s pregnant so she needed to stop every hour to pee and it was very annoying. I got quite sick of those stops towards the end.
"Back a bit I’ve done a couple of road trips with a few mates when we first got our licence - it was a lot of fun. Otherwise, no, I tend to fly everywhere, until now.
"[With COVID] I reckon [a return to road tripping] is already happening. Once they open up the borders a bit more, people are going to do road trips. It’s good though. They’re cool."
If you could pick someone to road trip with, who would it be?
"How many people am I allowed? If I could have another three. I’d probably [invite]… Joe Rogan, Jim Jefferies and someone really smart like Elon Musk. Actually, no, he’d be quite boring because he’s a robot. Who’s another good storyteller?
"Maybe, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I like him. And they all know each other, apparently - they’ve all been on Joe’s podcast. That [podcasts] have basically replaced my radio."
Are you an old car guy or a new car guy?
"I can respect the older cars and the old muscle cars and there’s some cool old cars out there that you just have to love. And I love the technology in the new ones, so I’m kind of both.
"But I couldn’t do without Bluetooth connectivity, reversing cameras - because I’m just terrible at reversing - and DISTRONIC, because in traffic it’s the best thing ever."
With Dave about to hit the wide, blue yonder with Will Brown, what’s Reynolds like as a passenger – in a car or plane?
"I’m a very bad passenger. I always like to be in control of things – especially on the racetrack.
"You know how we go to Norwell [racetrack, south of Brisbane] and do those driver training days? I was with Will the other day and I’m just a terrible passenger.
"I’m way worse at speed than I am on the road. Not that bad on the road but at speed, I’m just so bad.
"And in the plane... Well, I’m like shit scared of flying at the best of times... I assume Will’s pretty good in the air - he seems to know what he’s talking about and he flies a couple of times a week so..."
No inflight entertainment on Will Brown Airways, but if you had the choice of a car-related movie, what would it be...
"Remember those Havoc videos? It was just all shit gone wrong. I used to watch them religiously as a kid - go the movies to hire them out and there was like nine or ten different copies of them so I think I milled through those a couple of times.
"I love Gone in 60 seconds because of the type of cars; Talledega Nights because it’s funny; the Senna doco, that was cool as... Really, really cool to watch."
The 2020 Supercars season hasn’t been the happiest hunting ground for David and his Penrite Racing squad. The Melbourne-based team has faced the challenge of operating remotely for much of the season, thanks to COVID-related border closures.
So, is a good result in this weekend’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, where the Erebus operation is traditionally strong, enough to turn an average year around?
"Oh, 100%. If I was to win Bathurst, I’d say it was the greatest year of my life - regardless of what else happened all year results-wise.
"You can come 20th every race and then win Bathurst and say that was the best year of your life. So yeah, hopefully, it can be the best year of my life.
"Our cars are generally quite suited, and I seem to know what I’m doing around there.
"[But] It’s going to be very interesting because, you know, a lot of teams haven’t been back to base, so there’s a big question among everyone about the cars’ longevity... Whether they can actually go that distance without any failures. And the co-drivers haven’t had any miles in anything this year so that’s going to be interesting to see how they race against each other.
"It’s going to be awesome to watch."
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