Mercedes, Holden, Bathurst 2017, Betty Klimenko and Penrite all conjure up images of a much loved and respected Australian Supercars team.
Now known as Penrite Racing, the team is owned by Betty Klimenko and is based in Melbourne.
Late in June 2019 it was announced that Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan had bought into the Holden outfit through a stake in one of its Racing Entitlements Contracts. Ryan now holds a 50% share of the #99 REC used to run Anton De Pasquale along with Klimenko.
Erebus Motorsport was originally competing in the Australian GT Championship before purchasing Stone Brothers Racing V8 Supercars team early in 2012. They competed in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship firstly with Mercedes-Benz E63 W212s (2013-15) then switched to Holden for the 2016 season.
This was at the time when Shane van Gisbergen was driving for Stone Brothers Racing and abruptly ‘retired’ at the end of 2012 with the impending sale about to take place. (He returned to the grid for the opening round of the 2013 season driving for Tekno Autosports).
Lee Holdsworth scored the team’s first race win at Winton in April 2014 while Will Davison secured the team’s second V8 Supercar race win at the 2015 Ubet Perth Super Sprint at Barbagallo Raceway.
In 2016 the team switched to Holden Commodores, initially purchased from Walkinshaw Racing and recruited driver David Reynolds. Then in 2017 they built their own which saw Reynolds finish fifth overall in the championship.
It was also that year when David Reynolds and Luke Youlden scored the team’s greatest success, winning the rain affected Bathurst 1000. Fourth home was their sister car driven by Dale Wood and Kiwi Chris Pither.
2018 at Bathurst could have been another victory for Reynolds and Youlden but fatigue and dehydration affected Reynolds too badly, handing the lead to eventual winner Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards.
Reynolds still finished fifth overall in the 2018 standings.
For 2019, the Penrite Oil Company increased its sponsorship and took over the title sponsorship of the team.
Klimenko is the first woman to own a Supercars team, an unlikely heiress marking a mark in motorsport. Conceived in a Kings Cross jail cell and orphaned as a baby, she was adopted and by John and Eta Saunders, co-founders of Westfields.
Now regarded as one of the wealthiest woman in Australia, she has put her resources into a Supercars team, into trying to climb that mountain of a task to win in Supercars.
” For me, it’s not about the speed. It’s not the winning, either. It’s that it is so hard to win,” she says. And that is it in a nutshell.
Below the Bonnet is a podcast featuring Supercars drivers’ David Reynolds and Michael Caruso. The latest addition features Klimenko in the studio talking through the highs and lows of racing and what initially got her involved in the sport.
Listen here: (It is a great interview)
The latest Ipswich round over the weekend yielded disappointing results – Reynolds ninth and 21st, Anton de Pasquale 14th and 11th – and now Penrite Racing has slipped to fourth in the teams championship, having for most of the season been the leading Holden team.
Penrite Racing will again be one of the top teams to beat at the 2019 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in October.
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