UNDERDOG MENTALITY
LITTLE TEAM THAT COULD:
PRESTON Hire Racing owner Charlie Schwerkolt is thriving on his Supercars team being the underdogs punching above their weight.
The Gold Coast-based businessman has been involved in the category for more than a decade and has reached heights such as co-owning Dick Johnson Racing when it won the 2010 championship.
Schwerkolt is now in his second year with his own single-car squad, spearheaded by driver Lee Holdsworth, and they’re about to head to the location that derailed their 2016 campaign: Darwin.
It was in the Northern Territory capital where Holdsworth had an enormous shunt that fractured his pelvis, right knee and two ribs.
It left the team with a wrecked car and their star driver sidelined for three months.
Mechanical gremlins then ended their 2016 Bathurst run after just two laps before Holdsworth was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time at the Australian Grand Prix round in March this year when Nick Percat suffered a brake failure and ploughed into the No.18.
But Schwerkolt feels, with the “rule of three” complete, things are on the up as they prepare for a return to Darwin this weekend.
“I think our bad luck is out of the way now,” he said.
“We have lifted our game for sure this year.
“We feel we have got a fast car now … we have come a long way from last year.
“Our goal is at the end of this year just to be inside the 10 in the championship which I think is still realistic.”
Holdsworth is 12th overall in the tight 26-car field – four places ahead of rival one-car team Tekno Autosports, who Schwerkolt describes as their benchmark.
Also high on the bucket list is a maiden podium finish for Preston Hire Racing.
“That would just be amazing for our little team and really deserved,” Schwerkolt said. “We can do it. I’m sure we can do it.”
Contending for race wins would then be the next step but confessed realist Schwerkolt knows pushing into the sport’s premier bracket is a tall order.
“There is no way known I can win a championship,” he said. “We’re only a single-car team and we don’t have those multimillion-dollar budgets so we will be pushing hard and see where we go.”
Schwerkolt lives on the Gold Coast – on non-race weekends anyway – with his wife Karen and two teenage children, daughter CharleyJaye and son Thomas who regularly watch Supercars races from home.
His busy life leads him to Melbourne “every single week” where the head office of his business Waverley Forklifts is located, right next to his Preston Hire Racing operation.