WITH only six rounds remaining in the Supercars season, Newcastle 500 race winner David Reynolds hopes to climb his way back into the mix of the drivers' championship.
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But on Wednesday, which marked 100 days until this year's Newcastle 500, all Reynolds was climbing was trees.
Blowing horns and ringing bells too.
The experienced Supercars driver and second-year rookie James Golding were in town to mark the countdown to this year's event - the third Newcastle has hosted.
The duo marked the 100-day countdown by blowing the horn on the William the Fourth ship, docked at Honeysuckle, before spending a couple of hours hanging around Treetops Adventure Park in Blue Gum Hills Regional Park at Minmi.
"I just loving driving the [Newcastle] track, it's probably one of the most enjoyable ones we go to all year," Reynolds said.
"All us drivers probably think Bathurst is our favourite, but this is the next best one on the calendar.
"You really know you're alive when you do a fast lap around here."
You're either up the front or in the fence.
- David Reynolds on the Newcastle 500 circuit
Reynolds, who won the final race of the season last year - race two of the Newcastle 500 - said finishing the year on a high had put his team in good stead to start 2019.
However, the 34-year-old driver has slipped from third to sixth in the championship contest and admitted it would take something special to turn it around.
But the winner of the 2017 Bathurst 1000 said anything was possible in motorsport and especially through the period of enduro races in Supercars.
"There's still six rounds left in our series, so there's still plenty of time to climb up," he said.
"It was only a round and a half ago we were third in the championship, so we're not far off it, it's just things haven't gone our way.
"That's what I love our sport, it's all changeable.
"If you're going slow, you can put a different spring in your car [or] have a different roll bar and make more speed that way.
"I'm really looking forward to rolling out and see how we go next round [OTR SuperSprint in South Australia on August 23-25]."
The Newcastle 500 is the season finale of the 2019 Supercars Championship and runs from November 22-24.
Tickets are still available to the event, but the special Rock'n'Race tickets - which include Saturday entry and access to the KISS concert, featuring Newcastle's own Screaming Jets - are selling fast.
Reynolds said he will likely attend the concert, the last stop on the Australian leg of KISS' farewell tour and the only outdoor KISS concert in the country.
"Generally on the race weekend, us drivers or team personnel, we don't really get to go see the concerts," he said.
"But this one I'm going to try and actually get to because it's probably one of the last times they'll be in Australia."
