Supercars’ version of Drive To Survive comes alive at Bathurst
For every great story about the winner of the Bathurst 1000, there are dozens of heartbreaking ones from those further down the field. David Long talks to two high-flying Kiwis looking to scrap it out in today’s Great Race.
For the two men who win this year’s Bathurst 1000 it will be one of the greatest days of their lives.
As for the other 54 drivers, it’s been another weekend of what could have been.
Kiwi ace Shane van
Gisbergen and Aussie team-mate Garth Tander are favourites to win the great race today as they have that perfect combination of a fast car, a quality team behind them and two drivers who are exceptionally quick.
So while there will be plenty of attention on them, perhaps there’ll be more interesting stories further back.
What made the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive so fascinating wasn’t how the top drivers at Red Bull and Mercedes do, but how those down the back end of the grid like Haas and Williams battle away with the odds so heavily stacked against them.
It’s the same in Supercars as there are drivers scrapping to get seats in the top teams, but others hang on for as long as they can before getting a proper job.
For two of the New Zealand drivers this weekend, Bathurst 1000 is crucial in shaping their futures.
Andre Heimgartner has been steadily climbing the ladder since making his debut at Bathurst in 2014 at the age of 19, despite having a few setbacks.
The 35-year-old Chris Pither is still looking to establish himself at a middle of the pack team, although hopes he’ll get there with his current outfit PremiAir Racing.
But almost everyone, apart from those drivers at the top four teams, Triple Eight, DJR, Tickford and Walkinshaw Andretti United is battling for their Supercars survival and a good race at Bathurst helps them achieve that.
Brad Jones, Heimgartner’s boss at BJR, explains what it’s like for drivers down the back of the grid.
‘‘Supercars contains 20 of the best touring car drivers in the world and when you try to step up, from Super2 or a Porsche to get into that group, it’s really difficult,’’ Jones said.
‘‘To make it worse, we only have three days a year of testing, so young guys don’t have an opportunity to get used to anything, except at a race meeting and it’s very visible.
‘‘You’re making mistakes in front of lots of people.
‘‘It’s the same for everyone and it was like it for Andre. He, like most people, found it difficult and then got out of it for a year.
‘‘But he did an amazing job for us at the Gold Coast (in 2017, finishing third) and got a fulltime gig at Kelly Racing. He’s now well established and doing a
great job.
‘‘No matter who you are, it’s really hard and the only thing that changes that is if you get into a really good car and then jump a level, like Broc Feeney (Triple Eight) has done this year.
‘‘The racing at the back is harder than at the front.
‘‘Because when you’re at the front you’ve got something to lose, but at the back you’ve got nothing to lose.’’
Heimgartner made the podium twice at Pukekohe last month. He’s eighth in the championship and at the age of 27, appears on the brink of a big breakthrough.
‘‘It was good, more consistent,’’ Heimgartner said of his Pukekohe experience.
‘‘We’ve had four podiums this year and lots of fourths and fifths. But lots of bad results as well.
‘‘The last round was good all weekend, the car was fast and we were able to maximise the opportunities we had.
‘‘So I think it was really good timing, coming into this part of the year where we have different styles of racing, it’s longer and obviously this race is very challenging.’’
Outside of the established drivers, who you get a seat with can depend on how much money you can bring to a team and Heimgartner didn’t have the financial resources to fork out around $800,000 for a drive with a top team during the early years.
Up until a few years ago he was still holding down a fulltime
‘The racing at the back is harder than at the front. Because when you’re at the front you’ve got something to lose, but at the back you’ve got nothing to lose. ’ BJR TEAM BOSS BRAD JONES
job as a financial broker.
‘‘I stopped that in 2019. Thank God,’’ he said.
‘‘It was good, but to take that next step I needed to concentrate more on the racing side of it.
‘‘I still do other things outside of racing, like driver training stuff, but nothing fulltime.’’
Pither’s best result in a Supercars race was at Bathurst in 2017, when he finished fourth with Dale Wood.
This season the best he’s done is 13th in Tasmania. He’ll start today 21st on the grid, but is optimistic that there’s the pace in his car to progress through the field.
‘‘It’s been a bit of a trend lately,’’ Pither said of qualifying.
‘‘But our race pace has been stronger. We were happy with our race pace at Pukekohe and our pace is definitely stronger in comparison to our qualifying position over the last couple of races.
‘‘So that’s a positive with this being such a long race and so many variables.’’
However, scrapping away from down the back, Pither knows he’ll be battling with desperate drivers.
‘‘From the midfield and back, it’s generally the less experienced guys and they’re fighting as hard as they can to keep their seat or progress up the chain,’’ he said.
‘‘The guys at the pointy end are typically secure, they’ve been in the championship for probably a longer period of time and the pressure can come off to some degree — they can focus on driving the car fast.’’
Pither is looking to remain with PremiAir next season, which will be a first for him.
‘‘I have been around the championship for a long time and had the odd call-up to fill in for people, but I’ve only had twoand-a-half seasons fulltime,’’ he said.
‘‘The battle has been getting that consistency. The three years I’ve done, 2016, 2020 and 2022, none of them have been back-toback with the same team or same engineer.’’