FULLWOOD: ‘I WAS CRAPPING MYSELF!’
PHONE CALLS to prospective team bosses are a part of life for racing drivers – but can become especially daunting when you’re trying to convince an IndyCar legend and an F1 team boss that you should be their driver..
WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Mark Horsburgh / Supercars
PHONE CALLS to Walkinshaw Andretti United co-owners Michael Andretti and Zak Brown helped seal the deal for impressive Supercars rookie Bryce Fullwood to join the team in this year’s Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.
The 22-year-old from Darwin, fresh from a title-winning year in the Dunlop Super2 Series and an impressive enduro campaign alongside Andre Heimgartner in a Nissan Altima, Fullwood still had to work hard to engineer his own deal with the Clayton-based squad this year.
Speaking to the On the Grid podcast this week, the Mobil 1 Middy’s Racing driver explained how he took over all of his racing negotiations prior to his final year in the Super2 series, a situation continued onwards when he looked to make the step into the main game.
It meant he was the one ringing team owners chasing a seat.
“It was god damn scary when I was first trying to talk to all these guys!” Fullwood said.
“I did the deal myself with these guys and I rang Ryan. I was in Melbourne and rang (then co-team principal) Matt Neilson and he said that they weren’t really interested in a rookie, initially. And I said; ‘Look, I’m in Melbourne and I’d love to come and meet you and just introduce myself and show you what I’m about and show you how passionate I am about racing.
“That was kind of where we started the ball rolling.”
After speaking to Walkinshaw, Fullwood then had the challenging task of getting in touch with his co-partners in the storied Melbourne-based squad, including 42-time IndyCar winner Michael Andretti and McLaren’s Motorsport boss, Zak Brown.
“I was on the phone to Ryan quite a lot and he said ‘look, obviously there’s three co-owners in the business so you need to ring Michael and Zak and you need to sell yourself to them’. I thought, ‘Far out.. are you kidding me?’,” Fullwood laughed.
“I sat in the Virgin lounge at the Gold Coast airport and rang Michael Andretti and was absolutely sweating the whole time I spoke to him.. and the same for Zak, I was in another Virgin lounge in Melbourne when I spoke to Zak, because I was absolutely crapping myself so I could not ring them all one after another!
“I’ve got to admit, they’re both great guys. They’re so passionate about their motor racing and after a couple of moments talking to them It was fine.. but it fairly daunting to talk to them..”
Despite being a relatively late signing to the WAU squad, Fullwood has been solidly impressive this year with a series of strong performances – including a season-best of 10th in the final race in Sydney last round.
After a lengthy stint in the secondary Supercars category, the Darwin driver believes it was his impressive enduro campaign alongside Andre Heimgartner that helped his cause when it came time to land a main-game seat for 2020.
That included placing sixth – and top Nissan – in both co-driver only practice sessions at Mount Panorama and a standout run to fourth in the dedicated co-driver cup race at Sandown; finishing behind only Craig Lowndes, Will Brown and Garth Tander. Eighth in the Sandown 500 itself was another strong performance.
“I think the groundwork was put in with the Super2 performance, but it (the enduro campaign) was the cherry on top,” he told On the Grid.
“I guess if I were a Supercar team owner, to look into Super2 and see someone doing well that’s all fine and well, but to see them in your race in your backyard doing well, that’s a different story – in a car that you know how the performance has been for that year. I rate Andre quite highly and I think he did a really good job in that Nissan last year. The fact that I guess I was pretty much matching him with speed everywhere we went I think really showed that I guess I was ready for the step.
“The event that really showed it was Bathurst, for me. I had a really good weekend in Super2 and also had a really good performance in Car 7 with Andre. That was definitely one of the big, I guess, moments where I sort of thought within myself that I was ready to do this myself.”
Listen to Bryce Fullwood’s full chat with the On the Grid team here:
Richard Craill (administrator)
Working full time in the motorsport industry since 2004, Richard has established himself within the group of Australia’s core motorsport broadcasters, covering the support card at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix for Channel 10, the Bathurst 12 Hour for Channel 7 and Porsche Carrera Cup & Touring Car Masters for FOX Sports’ Supercars coverage. Pretends to be a PR guy / Journalist and sometimes photographer to make ends meet when not yelling at a television in a padded room.
