Reynolds primed for "balls to the wall" Gold Coast return

The Supercars field will make its first appearance on the Gold Coast streets since 2019 with a pair of 250-kilometre races forming the penultimate round of the season.

While always a challenge, drivers are this year bracing for a particularly difficult Gold Coast thanks to both a lack of recent experience on the unforgiving layout, as well as the length of the races.

To the first point, Grove Racing driver Reynolds concedes that Friday's practice sessions will be an eye-opening experience for the drivers.

But, at the same time, the seven-time race winner says he can't wait to tackle the "balls to the wall" circuit again after such a long break.

"It's always eye-opening when you go there," he told the Castrol Motorsport News podcast. "It doesn't matter how many times you've been there, it's always balls to the wall.

"Your confidence starts in a tiny little circle and then it grows. And as practice moves on, you start putting new tyres on and you've got to start pushing, and your confidence goes back again.

"I love the place, there is nothing better. Absolutely nothing better. It's so much fun.

"That Turn 1/2 complex, that's the gnarliest. Even though it doesn't look that bad, you get on the throttle trying to turn the car with a wall directly in front of you. You're judging whether you hit it or not every lap. It's full-on.

"And then the back chicane, obviously, is super fast and the car floats around. Then the next section, it's just concrete fences. You're trying to use as much road as you can without hitting the fence.

"It's the best track."

Reynolds may be excited for the layout, however he's unsure on the new race format for the revived Gold Coast event.

Traditionally the event has been split over two 300-kilometre heats, however run as a two-driver enduro.

The total distance is down 100 kilometres this year, but, as a solo round, drivers will spend more time in the car than ever.

Reynolds is concerned about driver fitness across races that long, particularly in his own case, given his Bathurst 1000 campaign was over before he'd turned a racing lap due to the Lap 5 chaos.

"It's going to be tough," he said. "We haven't done a lot of long races and I didn't do Bathurst so I'm going to be underdone a little bit.

"I don't agree with 250-kay races, they could probably get the same result with 200-kay races. There's probably no point in making us struggle through the extra 50 kays.

"It could be really good, but most the time we do this, there's not a lot to gain from the extra 50 kays."

This will be the penultimate round for Gen2 cars in the main game, with Gen3 builds now the focus for teams as they prepare for 2023.

While teams are all hoping to avoid any costly repairs to cars just weeks out from the end of their service lives, Reynolds is sure there will still be some wrecked cars come Sunday night.

"There's going to be some victims [of the walls]," he said. "It's motor racing, we've got egos and we want to be fast. There's always going to be dramas."