Camaro GT3
It was difficult to pick the bigger hit with spectators at Barbagallo Raceway’s Perth SuperNight meeting: racing under lights or the Camaro in the GT races!
Dale Paterson Motorsport’s rare sortie outside Victoria for the Australian GT Championship’s Wanneroo round was rewarded with the overall Trophy class victory for older GT3 cars. And in the quick to be superseded world of GT racing, the crowd favourite Camaro is positively ancient.
The Camaro GT3 model rst hit the track in Europe in 2013. Developed by the independent German out t Reiter Engineering with the approval of Chevrolet, its homologation was based on a ‘tuner’ version of Chevy’s Camaro. Hence, its 7.9-litre naturally-aspirated V8 engine, when the biggest donk in the fth-generation Camaro road car was a still sizeable 7.0 litres.
Reiter developed the 650bhp GT3 Camaro as an affordable alternative to European exotica for teams attracted to big block Americana. It never proved to be a truly competitive option, so few teams slapped their money down.
Nonetheless, two Camaros were imported down under by M-Motorsport. Inky Tulloch raced one example in New Zealand and
Paterson has competed sporadically here in Australia with the other.
Paterson has slowly chipped away at extracting pace from the big black and orange beast. With help from the car’s constructor Hans Reiter, who was on hand at the Australian Grand Prix meeting in March, he found six seconds in qualifying trim around Albert Park, 2018 to 2019. Thus, he was keen to continue that development in Perth.
“Over the years we’ve struggled a bit to nd the ideal setup for the car which is perhaps under-tyred and over-powered for what we have to work with,” Paterson explained.
“It’s fantastic to drive and I get a huge buzz out of steering it. It’s also a big crowd pleaser and it works in perfectly with my after-market engine tuning business which has a heavy focus on the Chevrolet product, so it suits me perfectly.”
With many of the Camaro GT3s now retired from active duty – Camaro has since been homologated in GT4 form – Paterson has found himself ying solo. Well, on the track at least, as he’s picked up many Supercar fans who stick around for the GT3 races and yearn for the day when Camaro takes on Mustang in the big league.