Caitlin Wood is out to tick Bathurst off her bucket list and boost hopes of a return to Europe to again drive a Lamborghini in GT racing this weekend.
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The 20-year-old from Tenambit will make her debut on Mount Panaroma driving a KTM X-BOW in the Bathurst 12-Hour GT4 category with the M-Motorsport team.
Wood came through practice well on Friday ahead of qualifying on Saturday and the race on Sunday.
“It was the car I was driving overseas in 2016 so it works out pretty good,” Wood said this week about the Bathurst opportunity.
“At least I can hit Bathurst in a car that I know and I’m the only female on the grid which is pretty cool.
“I haven’t done Bathurst before so it will be nice to finally get my first laps in around the track properly. It’s a tick off the bucket list.”
Wood was aiming high after testing the car at Phillip Island last weekend.
“We’ve got our sights set on the podium and anything better than that, a win, would be amazing for my debut at Bathurst,” she said. “But it is my debut and we’ve just got to take it one hour at a time. It’s a long race so it’s just stay off the walls, stay out of trouble and hopefully at the end of 12 hours we’ll be up the front.”
Wood last year drove for the Reiter Engineering team in a Lamborghini Gallardo R-EX in the Blancpain GT3 Series. It came after she won the chance with her efforts in the Reiter Young Stars Cup.
However, Wood was looking for another opportunity after “a really tough year”.
“My teammates did a bit of crashing on me so there wasn’t many racing laps,” she said.
“It’s a very competitive series and for two rookies to go in there never driving a GT3 before, it was always going to be tough up against factory drivers who race every weekend.
“Hats off to Hans Reiter for doing that and I’ve grown so much from that experience, even though there were bad times when my teammate crashed and we didn’t get to race.
“Those things happen in motorsport and they suck, but you’ve just to get over it and move on.
“Hopefully I can make 2018 a little bit better with seat time.”
Wood, who dreams of driving in the Le Mans 24-Hour, said she had just received a UK visa and was “trying to get back into a Lamborghini again but there’s nothing confirmed yet”.
