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Garland pumped for S5000 debut
Kody Garland is getting ever more excited ahead of his debut in S5000 at this weekend’s Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight, with Garry Rogers Motorsport.This weekend marks a long-awaited debut in the category, after first driving S5000 machinery 18 months ago at the 2022 GRM Combine around the Symmons Plains and Baskerville circuits. Since then, Garland has raced for the Garry Rogers Motorsport team in Supercheap Auto TCR Australia and continued to drive the S5000 across various test days.Most recently, a test day at Sydney Motorsport Park has allowed Garland to get a head start on how Australia’s fastest race cars handle around the Eastern Creek Circuit. The test also gave Garland an early look into the handling characteristics of the new tyre compound coming into effect.The fourth round of the S5000 season features two practice sessions and qualifying on Friday, a lone race on Saturday and two races on Sunday morning.Garland’s S5000 debut will be backed by Advanced Automotive, Wholesale Diesel and Redpoint Kempsey.“This is a huge transition, going from TCR to S5000 machinery,” said Garland.“I am certainly looking forward to the challenge though, it’s a very different style of racing for me to learn having never raced open wheel before. It has been a bit of a long time coming, I’ve been fortunate over the last year or so to have a few laps in the car here and there but never a serious crack.“The tyre warming with the new compound should be a bit easier, with less time to get up to speed compared to what the series had been using. It also felt like there was more mid-corner grip, so they’ll probably break all the lap records all over again, they’re only getting faster which is just incredible.“I’m hoping we can be reasonably competitive straight away, but I expect it will take a bit of adjusting before we can challenge at the very front. The target is to learn as much as we can before we attack the Tasman series in Adelaide,” concluded Garland.