It’s that time of year again, when the piles of metal and carbon fibre start looking like legit race cars and the smell of E85 starts to waft around the workshop.
New liveries, new uniforms and a recharged crew – the preseason preps are coming along nicely.
Again, the familiar faces in Mark “Dutto” Dutton (Team Manager), David Cauchi (#1 Race Engineer) and Grant “Shippy” McPherson (#97 Race Engineer) will grace your TV screens; however, the people behind the helmets in the pit crew may change.
To help you get an idea of who is who on race day, we’ve put together a quick 101 on our 2018 race team crew…
Read: How did our first shakedown with the next-gen Commodore go?
Crew Chief
Kris “Gooey” Goos: The ‘Goo-man’ has all things on track down pat as he leads the charge at race weekends. Never stops until the job is done, then double checks that it’s done correctly.
Car #1
Mechanic
Ty “Tybo” Freele: Tybo is one of the Triple Eight originals, having already been part of the furniture when bossman Roland Dane took over Briggs Motorsport back in 2003 and is now the #1 mechanic on J-Dub’s beast. Quotes his favourite Triple Eight memory has J-Dub winning his first race for Triple Eight – Clipsal in 2006.
Mechanic
Zach Davis: The new kid on the block who undertook a hard-earned apprenticeship with us before getting the full-time call-up. If you struggle to locate him, he’s the one currently rocking the handlebars on his top lip.
Mechanic
David “Haddo” Hadfield: If you’ve followed us since our early days, you’ll recognise Hado from a variety of roles he’s blessed over the years including tyres, refueler, special projects, truck packer, logistics, you name it. Like the most of us, Hado’s favourite event is Bathurst.
Mechanic
Adam “Bull” Devereux: The man who controls our pace, or dampers… Bull is a multi-tasker over race weekend, however, his most important role is setting up and testing all the dampers.
Read: What keeps us busy in the off-season?
Car #97
Mechanic
Andrew “Belly” Bell: Another Triple Eight old-timer, Belly is on his second stint at Triple Eight after thinking the real world was a good place to be. Came back to us in 2016 to look after car builds and signed on as #97’s No. 2 last year. Now SVG’s No. 1, Belly is a master and we hear he has a few party tricks up his sleeve…
Mechanic
Jordan (we haven’t found a nickname yet) Repetto: The ‘newbie’, Jordan has been with us just over two weeks and has come in with eyes wide open, in the busiest two weeks of the year. If he can get through this, he can get through anything!
Mechanic
Nick Petrons, Ben Leeds, Dan Williams & Kurt Kostecki: This role is being shared by our Sub-Assembly gurus Nick Petrons, Ben Leeds and Dan Williams, with Kurt putting his hand up for a couple too on top of his Super2 driving commitments.
Mechanic
James “Jimmy” Henderson: Now, Jimmy may be No. 4 mechanic but he’s got the most important job of them all – the “Deadman”, the person on the handle of the fuel rig to control the flow of fuel in case something goes wrong. Our lives are literally in his hands or else we’d quite possibly be a dead man.
Tyres + Truckie
Warick “Wazzie” Beames: If anyone is completely across tyres then it’s Wazzie. He knows them inside and out and you’ll often find him buried in a sea of rubber out the back of the garages each race meeting. Wazzie also backs up as our official truckie, driving the beloved RBHRT transporter around the country for every race weekend. Give him a wave if you see him out bush.
Stickers
Chris “Scooter” Hobson: Applying our stickers to the car is an important job and its Scooter’s craftsmanship that’s front and centre at every race. Each nudge and shunt sends tingles up his spine as his exquisite work takes a knock, although he comes prepared with numerous stickers on the go. Also, word is he doesn’t actually like his nickname – so call him Scooter as much as you can 😉
So that’s it, what a mighty fine bunch we have there… They make up just some of our hard working team and are the ones hidden behind the helmet on race day. If you see them around, give them a pat on the back 🙂
*These people and their positions are subject to change throughout the season, so don’t go getting any of this tattooed on your arm…
