Heartbreaking result for Reynolds and Youlden

Over and over, David Reynolds was saying the same words after the battle of Bathurst 2018.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He said it to his engineer, Alistain McVean. He said it to Penrite Erebus team owner, Betty Klimenko. He said it to everyone in the Erebus pit and, eventually, in the privacy of the driver lounge at the back of the team transporter, he said it to his co-driver, Luke Youlden.

“Mate, I’m so, so sorry. There was nothing I could do,” Reynolds told Youlden.

Yet he had nothing to apologise about. The defending Bathurst champion was undone in the most crazy way on a day when the Bathurst gods again smiled down on Autobarn Racing’s Craig Lowndes.

Reynolds tore away from pole position and led and led and led.

But then he dehydrated. Then he faded. Eventually he cramped. And then he was done.

“I was in the worst pain of my life. I’ve never felt anything like it. There was nothing I could do,” said Reynolds, lying his underwear on the massage bed while his physio Nicole worked to revive his shattered body.

Then he talked about the stuff that he could never say as the world eavesdropped on his radio communications at Mount Panorama.

“I dehydrated myself,” he confessed.

“My mind went first. And then my body gave up.

“My mind went backwards. Even for the first 15 laps of that stint I wasn’t really there. I couldn’t focus properly. I couldn’t concentrate.”

Eventually, the pain came as his right leg cramped. Then, inevitably, his left leg followed.

“I couldn’t tell if I was on the brake or on the gas. When Lowndes came past I couldn’t get to 100 per cent throttle.

With the Erebus Commodore running low on fuel, Reynolds retreated to the pits. His crew rushed to service the car, and to jam him full of cramp remedies.

But it was no good, as his left leg spasmed and the back wheels turned briefly, triggering a drive-through penalty. At that point there was no chance of even a podium place, and he gave up, parked, and gave the car to Youlden.

Reynolds was in too much pain to cry, too shattered to think, too disappointed for anything but apologies.

“I cannot believe it. We had the fastest car all day, by far. I really thought we were going to win,” he said, a little later.

Youlden was just as gutted after seeing the result slip away, but Betty Klimenko (herself carrying a badly injured leg through the Bathurst campaign) could see the positives.

“I guess I shouldn’t be laughing. But what else can you do? This is Bathurst,” she said.

“We go forward. We don’t look backwards. We’ll be back again next year and we’ll do it again.

“And I’m quite happy for Lowndes. He’s leaving with a bang,” she said.