Reynolds particulars Newcastle nightmare

Various drivers struggled with hovering cabin temperatures within the new Gen3 automobiles throughout Saturday’s opening leg of the Newcastle 500.

Reynolds seemed to be one of many worst hit by the situations, the Grove Racing driver rising from his Mustang worse for put on after 95 laps.

It is the second time in current historical past that Reynolds has been badly hit by warmth exhaustion, his run to second on the Gold Coast final November additionally taking its toll on his physique – to the purpose the place he was monitored by medics through the post-race press convention.

In line with Reynolds, this newest episode in Newcastle was even worse than the Gold Coast.

“It is actually laborious to explain,” Reynolds instructed Motorsport.com. “It is like working as quick as you may and your physique is convulsing – however you continue to should push on.

“You’ve got obtained 50 laps to go and also you’re so scorching that your physique is giving in. You are attempting to throw up, you are attempting to drink water and throw that again up.

“It was the most popular, most brutal feeling I’ve had in a race automobile, in that center stint [on Saturday]. I used to be in a world of damage.

“I simply tried to breathe. I used to be anaerobically respiration as laborious as I might.

“You simply maintain cruising round regardless that you are not very acutely aware. You are acutely aware, however you are not on prime of your recreation. I used to be most likely half a second, a second slower than my actual tempo. I bled a variety of time.

“Your stress goes up, your coronary heart charge goes up, the warmth of your physique goes up, and there is nothing to chill you down. You possibly can’t eliminate the warmth fast sufficient and it implodes your mind.

“You begin pondering all this bizarre stuff, like, ‘what am I doing out right here? What am I pondering?’. You are not concentrating immediately in your job.”

Reynolds managed to get by means of Sunday’s Newcastle race unscathed, taking a nice third, place, which he attributed to a mixture of decrease ambient temperatures and the redirection of some air from the pedal field to his physique.

Like Triple Eight and Erebus Motorsport, Grove Racing makes use of the electrical ChillOut cooling system to feed the motive force’s cool swimsuit, quite than a extra conventional dry ice system.

Whereas the ChillOut system is lighter and avoids dry ice freeze ups, it is not as chilly and does not embody an built-in helmet fan.

Incorrectly including a seperate helmet fan unit is what obtained the T8 Camaros kicked out of the Saturday race in Newcastle.

“We will both persist wth the ChillOut system, which is lighter and within the colder races it is excellent, however within the hotter races it’s a must to have one other system to relax your helmet air,” mentioned Reynolds.

“So we want to consider if we run the dry ice system, which is confirmed and everybody else is aware of about. There is a slight weight penalty with that, engineers do not actually like that. However we all know it really works.

“We have to sit down and have these conversations. The Gold Coast final 12 months, that was their ChillOut system on the Saturday that destroyed me. Now it is again within the automobile.”