Reef McCarthy, Super 3 Sponsorship.

Hey race fans, here's your opportunity to help out a rising Star in the Australian motorsport scene, Reef McCarthy has this year entered into the Super3 V8 Touring Car series, however with the step up has come increased costs! 

As Reef has recently come on board with the Erebus Academy, the Erebus Motorsport Racing Army, have partnered up to raise some much needed funds to help ensure that Reef can continue his brilliant work of 4 3rd place finishes in the opening rounds of the series.

Any additional funds we can receive for Reef will go a long way to ensuring he can have a successful 2021 and hopefully move on to bigger and better things next year.

Have a read over Reef's bio and achievements below, I'm sure you'll agree that this kids got some serious talent and deserves the opportunity to show the Supercars world exactly what he's got! 

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REEF MCCARTHY RACING BIO:

From a very young age Reef had a passion for motorsport, but it wasn’t until his 11th birthday that his parents finally caved in and purchased an old cadet kart for him to learn in. The gear was outdated and it would be another year of practice and saving up for a kart that was legal to race. Reef went on to have a very successful couple of years of kart racing at Club, State and National level, but in reality, circuit racing was always on his mind.

At 14 Reef was old enough to apply for a CAMS circuit licence and the big decision making process of choosing a category began. Every category seemed to have it’s own pros and cons but in the end all paths led to Formula Vee.

The class ticked all of the boxes when it came to performance parity, learning pure race craft and affordability.

In 2019 in his first full year of racing he finished 5th outright from 35 competitors in the State Championship. He would go on later that year to win Island Magic in a clean sweep, pole and 3 wins.

2019 also presented opportunities for new experiences. Reef was selected to attend the Toyota 86 driver development day at Norwell hosted by Erebus Motorsport. This was a great training day and the first time driving a vehicle with a roof! Reef also raced in the Excel Enduro at Winton Raceway and put on an impressive debut in the front wheel drive Hyundai.

2020 was off to a great start in the Vee taking out the first round at Sandown in another clean sweep, pole and 3 wins. Unfortunately the pandemic played havoc with the rest of the season and that would be the only state championship round. We did however get to compete Island Magic once again in November and made it back to back victories with pole, win, 3rd and then another win in the Trophy race.

We have thankfully had more opportunities to race this year and 2021 sees Reef comfortably leading the Victorian State Championship in Formula Vee with 6 wins so far this season.

Of course the big news this year has been the major step up into the Image Racing Super3 Supercar.

At the beginning of the year we had been giving a lot of thought towards the next step on the pathway to Supercars.

As incredible as Formula Vee is for developing young drivers it does not sit in the limelight as some other feeder categories, so some tough decisions needed to be made about which class for 2022?

Around the same time Terry Wyhoon from Image Racing was planning on taking a couple kids up to Winton to give them the experience of driving a Supercar. Reef’s Formula Vee mentor, Greg Beacham happened to be chatting with Terry one day and Terry generously offered Reef a couple of laps. Driving a Supercar at this point was not something we were even considering but if someone throws you the keys to one, well what do you do!

Going from a 60hp Vee to 650hp Supercar is a fair old jump but Reef took to it like a duck to water and exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Whe we got a phone call from Terry Wyhoon a couple of days later asking if Reef wanted to race at Bathurst for Round 1 we were in a bit of a state of shock. When we called back to check that he was talking about 2022 he said ‘no mate, you’ve got 5 weeks’.

Not sure if this is bad parenting or not, but 5 weeks later Reef was on the Mountain for the first time, racing a Supercar for the first time and running in 2nd on the practice time sheets! It was an incredible debut and a massive learning curve. Mistakes were made but it is all part of learning and to walk away in 4th after the round was amazing.

The recent Townsville back to back rounds were an opportunity to keep learning the car, experience a street circuit, and just keep pushing harder. The weekend ended up seeing Reef finish 3rd in all four race taking his first Super3 podiums. It was also enough to place Reef in 2nd position in the Super3 Championship.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

2016-2018 Club, State and National Go Kart racing representing Go Kart Club of Victoria

2018 - Awarded the FVAV Vaughen Colenso Young Gun Award

2019 - Hyundai Excel Enduro competitor, Winton Raceway

2019 - Victorian State Race Series - Formula Vee 5th outright from 35 competitors in first season of circuit racing

2019 - Island Magic national race meeting - Formula Vee Winner - pole, 1st, 1st, 1st

2020 - Victorian State Race Series - Formula Vee Championship leader -pole, 1st, 1st, 1st (Championship not awarded due to Covid 19 interruptions)

2020 - Island Magic national race meeting - Formula Vee Winner - pole, 1st, 3rd, 1st

2021 - Victorian State Race Series - Formula Vee Currently Championship leader 1st, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 2nd, dnf, 1st, 1st, 1st

2021 - AROCA Sprints - Toyota 86 Using sprints as practice between race meetings - Results: 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st

2021 - Supercars Super3 Championship Currently 2nd in Championship - 5th, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd