The Matt Stone Racing driver and his family have notably grafted together funding to supplement his racing budget through sausage sizzles, with the outcome a reward for persistence from all concerned.

“I think it’s just taking a lifetime of punches along the way,” Hazelwood responded when asked how he bounced back from his Sandown disappointment, a weekend which also including a horrifying rollover in a Sandown 500 qualifying race.

“You soon learn to build a thick skin over the years and motorsport certainly teaches that at a young age so after Sandown I was pretty fired up and to come to this weekend knowing we had a mathematical chance at winning the title.

“We put every single bit of resource into it that was possible to achieve that. That really comes down to the team at Matt Stone Racing and the amount of work that they’ve done behind the scenes.

“I suppose that’s the ultimate reward,” he added when asked about his family’s support.

“I said to them back in 2014 that we’d achieve this, and you always say you will but until you’ve actually done it, it’s hard to take in.

“Obviously it’s well-documented how incredible my family have been to get to this point, it’s certainly not the most financially well-off family but we were probably the hardest-working team family out there.

“We stuck together as a group and we haven’t looked back.

“There have been a lot of opportunities where we could have just put our hand up and taken a year off or take the easy route and miss a couple of rounds but we’ve done every round since 2014 even though we’ve effectively been up s**t creek sometimes.

“Without them I wouldn’t be here today, that’s for sure.”

from here: https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/11/30/hazelwood-reflects-challenging-super2-journey/