Silver Stars - Bathurst 12 Hour with Erebus

SILVER STARS
To the casual observer, motor racing is all about hardcore mechanicals. In reality, it's about flesh and blood – it is the people, not the cars who make racing unique.

A good example is the international GT3 racing circuit, teams from which lobbed at Mount Panorama in February to join local entries for the Bathurst 12 Hour.

GT3 cars are race versions of the supercars well-heeled consumer can drive out of a showroom. Little wonder then many of the cars at Bathurst are owned by wealthy ‘gentlemen’ amateur racers, who draft in professionals to co-drive with them in endurance events. The owners have the passion and the pros have the performance.

This year's 12 Hour event was the sixth since the race was reintroduced in 2007 after a 13-year hiatus. While there were fewer cars on the grid than in previous years, the quality and quantity at the sharp end was the best yet.

In the outright GT3 Class A, three Audi R8 LMSs, two Ferrari 458 Italias, a Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 and LP600 GT3, and two Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3s headed the battle.

The favourites were the two factory-backed Phoenix Racing Audis. Germany-based Phoenix Racing won last year and two of its winning drivers –Christopher Mies and Darryl O’Young returned, aided by Bathurst rookie, Christer Joens.

The second Phoenix Audi was raced by five-times Bathurst 1000 winner Craig Lowndes, fellow V8 Supercar driver Warren Luff, and businessman Mark Eddy. Eddy is the reigning Australian GT Champion having taken the title in 2011.

The trio finished second last year.

The car everyone feared, though, was the Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 driven by rapid Dane Allan Simonsen, V8 legend John Bowe, German Dominik Farnbacher, and businessman Peter Edwards.

At a ‘Drive Bathurst’ day last year, Simonsen shattered the unofficial lap record with a stunning 2:04.95sec time -- around two seconds quicker than the V8 Supercar qualifying record. On raw speed alone, the Ferrari would be a shoe-in – if it made it to the finish.

Motoring.com.au was ‘embedded’ in the Mercedes camp where a hulking pair of Black Falcon Racing-prepared SLSs were raced by multinational crews.

Black Falcon is an AMG ‘customer’ team based at the Nurburgring track in Germany and the silver ‘Aussie’ SLS was leased from the outfit by Erebus Racing, which runs Peter Hackett in the Australian GT Championship.

Erebus was keeping its own SLSs ‘safe’ for round one of the 2012 Australian championship, a week after Bathurst, but its crew managed the silver car. Partnering Hackett was young V8 ace Tim Slade, Dutch speedmeister Jeroen Bleekemolen and American Le Mans racer, Bret Curtis.

The second (blue and white) SLS is co-owned by wealthy Irishman Sean Patrick Breslin and his mate, Tanzanian brewing mogul Vimal Mehta. They shared the car with Breslin’s son and Black Falcon team manager, Sean Paul, and renowned Formula One driver trainer, Kiwi Rob Wilson.

The scene, as they say in the classics, was set…

“That’s the owner there,” he said pointing. If, like me, you expect a team owner to be (a) a man and (b) a conservative neat-freak in pressed pants, crisp shirt and shiny shoes (McLaren F1 boss Ron Dennis comes to mind), then you’d be as surprised as I was.

With her penchant for purple hair, tattoos and all-black clobber, property developer Betty Klimenko does not fit the stereotype of the team owner and that’s a welcome change.

The Merc lover and her husband and co-team owner Daniel (who is happy to don overalls and be one of the ‘grunts’), met Hackett at a Porsche driving course 12 years ago. Before long they had caught the racing bug and were sponsoring 'Hollywood' in F3 open-wheel racing. GT racing in a Lamborghini followed and eventually the pair built Erebus (Greek for darkness) Racing around him.

Betty is as passionate about racing and her ‘boys’ as she is about business and is a tough nut with a heart of gold.

“I’ve just fallen in love with the sport,” she said.

“I looked at every category but didn’t want to be in something too big, like V8 Supercars. [Category owner and racer] Tony Quinn wants to build this category up to international standards.

“In Europe, GT racing has so much technical support from the factories and they couldn’t believe what we were doing here [with no direct factory help]; that’s why we’ve got Black Falcon here.”

They’d all had done their research, of course; and played simulation games, watched Bathurst 1000 races and You Tube clips. They thought they knew what to expect but were still blown away by Mount Panorama.

“I like Bathurst because it’s an old school track and has historical significance, but all the preparation doesn’t prepare you for driving it. There’s very little room for error,” Curtis said.

And he would find out exactly how little room -- spinning into the Forest Elbow concrete to avoid a slower car in the second practice session.

“I came up on a car very quickly on a blind corner, stayed on the brakes a little too long, and the rear end came around. That’s the beauty of Bathurst; any track worth its salt can bite you.”

Curtis’ crash is offset by Bleekemolen’s second quickest time in the car in the same session; a sign that the AMG-Benz was on the money. The SLS would be repaired in time for qualifying the next morning.

The Black Falcon drivers were still finding their feet, though, and the car was some 24 seconds off Simonsen’s pace in the Ferrari in practice three.

“At about 35 I started making some money and I’d always wanted to go racing so I bought a Renault 5 then rolled it eight times at Brands Hatch,” he laughs.

“Then I went to a Formula Ford school and the moment I got hold of one of them it was bollocks to the Renaults!

“I bought the latest Van Diemen and got an Irish boy, Tommy Docherty, to look after it. He looked after me – and U2 – for two years in the British and Brands Hatch series and I ended up with six engines for one car! One day I phoned him up about the next race. No answer. He disappeared with my car and engines, never found ’em!”

Breslin graduated to a Van Diemen Formula Renault, run by a bloke called ‘Butcher’ Booth (he used to be a butcher) and ‘Basher’ Breslin found himself racing against 18 year olds. He “fiddled around” with open wheelers until he was 50 then gave it up.

“I had 600 people working for me in London and I was never going to work!” he grins.

But five years ago, after his son Sean Paul had recovered from a broken back while playing rugby and suggested buying go karts, he was back into it.

“We’d no sooner bought the karts when Sean said ‘Let’s go racing, I’ve heard of this place in Germany called the Nordschleife…”

Sean Patrick bought a Porsche 911 and Sean Paul wrote off three in the first year. Enter Rob Wilson, both Breslin's had lessons from the master and forged a strong friendship. At the same time Sean Patrick met the owner of Black Falcon.

The SLS is Breslin’s third Black Falcon race car (he had an Audi R8 and BMW M3 before that) which he bought with his mate Mehta, whom he met playing golf and ‘converted’.

After Q1 on Saturday morning, the order is the Maranello Ferrari, Audi, Ferrari, Audi, Lamborghini LP600 then the Erebus SLS, just 1.1sec off pole. The Black Falcon SLS is tenth quickest. The #1 Phoenix Audi is quickest in Q2 and Hackett gets the Erebus SLS up to fourth, with the Black Falcon car sixth.

Thus, the Mies/O’Young/Joens Phoenix Racing Audi takes pole ahead of the two Ferraris, the Lambo Gallardo, the second Phoenix Audi and the Erebus SLS; the Black Falcon car is set to start ninth.

The race starts in the pre-dawn at 6:15 and it’s soon apparent it will be a fierce joust between the Maranello Ferrari and the two Phoenix Audis for the lead. Simonsen goes ballistic in the 458 and breaks the lap record with a jaw-dropping 2:06.58 screamer on lap 24.

In the Erebus camp Slade starts well and holds down fifth after 26 laps but his quickest lap is three seconds off the Ferrari’s. The leaders lap every car up to tenth after just six laps!

The news was not so good for the Black Falcon car. Sean Paul started but pitted on lap 19 with something loose in the rear-end. A broken wishbone bolt is diagnosed and the crack German crew gets to work fixing it.

It isn’t fun to drive, Sean Paul says. “It's making the car kick in left-hand corners, it was really hard to get it pointed left; it wanted to keep turning left.”

Meanwhile, trouble strikes Simonsen; the Ferrari stopping at the top of the Mountain, apparently out of fuel. He manages to coast to the pits but loses two laps while a fuel gauge fault is diagnosed.

Two hours and 15 minutes down, it’s still raining. Bleekemolen in the Erebus car is having a ding-dong battle with the Phoenix Audis. It will be one of the race highlights. The Dutchman seems right at home in the wet.

Sean Patrick takes over the Black Falcon Merc, feeling his way on wet tyres, but when an Audi spins, bringing out the safety car, he pits for slicks. The race is restarted on lap 67 but the Irishman has a big crash on the fast approach to McPhillamy Park minutes later.

Sean Paul advised him to switch the traction control to the full wet setting but he turned the knob the wrong way… The car is out and Sean Patrick has bruised ribs and a lighter wallet to show for it.

On lap 90 the Phoenix Audis – Lowndes ahead of Joens – still lead from Bleekemolen in the Erebus SLS. Simonsen raced the Ferrari back onto the lead lap and Bowe is now driving and in fourth. Heavy rain is showing on the team radars.

They’re usually used in conjunction with fresh-air venting to the
driver’s helmet. A cool driver is less stressed and less liable to make
bad decisions due to fatigue. But cool suits are notoriously unreliable
and can turn from cool to cooking if they play up. The obvious
alternative is airconditioning, which was first trialled and is now
compulsory in the cramped, closed cockpits of Le Mans-type sportscars.

Erebus Racing’s Mercedes-Benz SLSs are basically souped-up road cars and
retain aircon. Driver Peter Hackett said it makes a big difference.

“The SLS has been built by AMG as an endurance car amateurs [usually
older] and pro drivers and it’s got factory aircon, which proved itself
at the 24 Hours of Dubai. It’s better than a cool suit.

“It’s a standard road car unit that weighs 11.5kg and draws 1.5kW. It’s
got two-stages and you can plumb it into your helmet. There’s no fogging
in the wet because it takes the humidity out.

"In Townsville [where the GTs raced in the V8 Supercar undercard] it was
42 [degrees C] outside and I had to turn the aircon down because I was
getting cold!”

“I had a great fight with the Audis. We are a little slower than them in the dry but in the wet we can really fight them. I’m doing rain dances.”

Hackett wouldn’t agree; the rain worsened during his stint. “I was just pushing on and trying to stay safe…There’s six hours to go,” he said.

The Maranello Ferrari is retired on lap 114 after an electrical fault causes the fire extinguisher to go off, stranding the car at the top of the Mountain. The conditions (including fog on the Mountain) get to Eddy in the #2 Audi and he goes off at the Chase on lap 134.

Just after six hours Bleekemolen took the lead when Mies put his Phoenix Audi into the sand at Murray’s Corner, bringing out the safety car.

The Audi drivers made mistakes but must have had lucky rabbit’s feet in their cars... Until Eddy tried to leave the pit with the refuelling hose still attached, incurring a five-minute, pitlane penalty putting him four laps down, and he crashes out at Skyline on lap 161.

At lap 163, the normal race distance for the Great Race, the Bathurst 1000, O’Young in the other Phoenix Audi leads from Slade in the Erebus SLS. There is still over 100 laps to go

Depending on pitstops and safety cars the Erebus Mercedes alternated between P2 and P3, fighting the remaining German-crewed Audi and the Clearwater Racing Ferrari of Craig Baird.

In the end, after 270 laps, the Mies/O’Young/Joens Phoenix Racing Audi triumphed by just 70 seconds from the Hackett/Slade/Bleekemolen/Curtis Mercedes and the fast-finishing Ferrari.

Erebus owner Betty Klimenko – who’d spent much of the race pacing up and down behind the pits – joined "her boys" on the pit wall to cheer her car as it took the chequered flag.

For a second, tears of joy welled up in her eyes and then she composed herself before heading off to watch the podium presentation. For her young team, second is almost as good as winning.

Like we said, motor racing is about people not cars.

ROAD TO RACE: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE
?Erebus Racing’s SLSs may look like full-blown race cars but they are built from, and based closely on, the road-going AMG Gullwings as Peter Hackett explains.

“They’re identical to the road cars… In fact, our race engine has less horsepower than the road car because we [have to] run massive [air] restrictors [under GT3 parity rules].

“Other than the carbon [driver] safety cell, racing gearbox, and a few body parts and wings, it’s a road car. Even the Brembo racing brakes are similar in diameter.

“GT3 is modified production car racing, but the biggest difference with the SLS is its consistency and drivability. It’s got enormous power, it does 7200 revs effortlessly, it stops all day, and it’s easy on tyres.”