Ant Petersen will be listed as the lead driver for next weekend’s Bathurst for Super Black Racing and Andre Heimgartner as his co-driver, but only because he got lucky.
All 26 cars in the 1000km race must stipulate who their No 1 driver is and for 25 cars it’s a straightforward process to name the fulltime driver from the V8 Supercars series.
But as Super Black Racing is a wildcard entry a decision had to be made, so team principal Greg Hahn said the best way to sort it out was to flick a coin.
“Between the two boys, I conference called them in on a call on Thursday and tossed a coin as to who would go down as driver and co-driver and Ant got the toss,” Hahn told Sunday News.
“It was literally decided by that – they are very close and they’ll go out there and drive as one man.
“Although we’ve named Ant as our driver and Andre as our co-driver, it won’t really mean anything until we do our five practice sessions, then we’ll sit down and sort out our strategy with the boys and work out who will drive first and who will do the shootout.
“Neither of them is a better driver than the other and we’ll see who is the best by Friday and we’ll be ready to go by Saturday.”
The team will arrive at Bathurst on Tuesday and the car will hit the track for the first time two days later.
The team have appointed Paul Ceprnich as their head engineer. Ceprnich was involved in designing the Car of the Future. He and other key people in the team garage are Australians, rather than New Zealanders, but needs must for this one-off race.
There should be a stronger Kiwi presence in the team next year.
Hahn says there has been an upsurge in interest in Super Black Racing as Bathurst approaches and more companies are looking to team up with them.
“We had about five companies come to us last week and are now on the car, so we’re really starting to feel the support of New Zealand and New Zealand companies that are getting behind what we’re doing.
“Even international companies are getting in touch with us about sponsorship and that gives us a lot of confidence going into next year.”
