Bathurst on track, bar the drivers
PLANS FOR Super Black Racing’s entry in this year’s Bathurst continue to be drawn up, but their New Zealand drivers for the event still haven’t been announced.
The New Zealand team are among the wildcard entries for this season’s V8 Supercars showpiece event in October. Ford Performance Racing will supply the car and SBR head of operations Greg Hahn says preparations are well advanced, even though they can’t confirm who’ll be behind the wheel.
‘‘There are a lot of things to consider with the drivers – experience versus speed,’’ Hahn said.
‘‘They’re all nice guys, but you can’t choose your drivers because they’re nice guys.
‘‘So that’s where knowledge sets in, we like a bit of mongrel, and you need a bit of that in order to get to the front.’’
Hahn confirmed that the two drivers will come from either the Dunlop Series, which is the second tier of V8 racing in Australia, or the New Zealand V8 Supercars series. Whoever gets the nod will hope they remain with the team next year, when Super Black Racing hopes to compete in the entire V8 Supercars series.
In the meantime, though, Hahn says the focus is on getting everything right for Bathurst, and using the knowledge of three Kiwi motor-racing greats to get advice.
‘‘Like any new team that’s going into this level of racing, knowledge is the big one and we’re lucky enough to have some older motorracing heads, being Owen Evans, Greg Murphy and Paul Radisich, who we can fall back on and use their knowledge racing,’’ Hahn said.
‘‘They know their way up the pit
Like any new team that’s going into this level of racing, knowledge is the big one and we’re lucky enough to have some older motorracing heads, being Owen Evans, Greg Murphy and Paul Radisich . . .
Greg Hahn
Super Black Racing’s head of operations lane better than anybody, all of them are supportive of the new model we’re building to develop new drivers to come through.
‘‘There are all sorts of things to get ready for Bathurst, whether it be merchandise, the car, the logistics, transport. There’s a lot to think about. We’re not that far away now and things are allhands-on-deck to make sure we get to the line in the best prepared way possible.’’
Whichever drivers get the nod to race at Bathurst for the team, they’ll use the allocated practice days to get used to the car and the setup sorted. Obviously, Super Black Racing is at a disadvantage compared to the teams that race in the V8 Supercars series all season, but Hahn hopes this is where the knowledge of FPR will help out.
‘‘It’s quite a critical part for the team to gel and bed down things,’’ Hahn said.
‘‘But the crew and our engineers are experienced; they’re not doing this for the first time.
‘‘There is a good group of engineers who’ll be working on the car, so we’ll get their knowledge, research, development and all of the things they’ve done up to this point with FPR.
‘‘It’s one of the reasons why we are one of the FPR cars and they’re supporting us.’’
FPR provide two other cars throughout the season, to David Reynolds at the Bottle-O Racing Team and Team Jeld-Wen’s Jeck Perkins. In the pit lane these two cars are up the front alongside FPR and they share the same crew, but Hahn says Super Black Racing won’t be able to have the same benefits.
‘‘Because we’re the wildcard, we get to go in where the wildcard entries go,’’ he said.
‘‘So we’re at the other end, but we do have our own Super Black Racing garage.’’