Revolution at Sprint Gas Racing
Sprint Gas Racing have just revealed their all new Holden Commodore VE complete with new paintwork ahead of the Hamilton 400 for driver Greg Murphy.
Sprint Gas Racing is the first to admit that it’s new VE Holden is not an evolution when it comes to car build, it’s a revolution.
Not in the team’s five year existence has it gone to so much effort to develop such a different car.
With Jason Richards’ new Holden due at Sandown, today Sprint Gas Racing revealed a radical new livery as it pulled the cover off Greg Murphy’s new VE.
A team of five, based at Tasman’s Dandenong manufacturing plant, have spent five months building the new cars in a custom made factory.
“Dandenong has been set up to do all Tasman manufacturing,” Jeff Grech said.
“This time last year we had none of our own equipment. When it came to building new cars we had to outsource. We also had to test our engines on someone else’s equipment. This has all changed.
“The team’s endured a lot in such a short amount of time. If you had the time and the budget you’d certainly do what we’ve done over 12 months, perhaps two years.
“The reason that we’ve achieved what we have is not about budget, but about the passion of the people that have been involved. They’ve put in a lot, but we expected a lot. It’s certainly the product of a lot of good people.
“With the ability to build our own cars and to develop our own engines we have absolute control over our own destiny.”
The new Sprint Gas Holdens are completely different to the 2007 cars.
“There’s not a thing on or in the car that is carry over from the old car other than the front up-right,” Grech said.
“We’re not just talking about a completely different body shell; we’re talking about everything that goes onto the body shell also.
“It’s not been an evolution it’s been a revolution. This is a revolutionary car as far as Tasman Motorsport is concerned. It couldn’t be more different.
“It includes a lot of input from a lot of our personnel that have background with many championship winning car builds, combined with some fresh thinking.”
The most significant change is the ability to better engineer the car for the driver so that changes are tangible.
“In the old car when we made changes the drivers had difficulty in feeling any difference, we’ve improved this significantly,” Grech said.
“During the test pretty much every change we made Greg could feel.
“This will enable us to better engineer the car and make it faster and more competitive.”
With a lot of work still to be done the team acknowledges that there is huge potential with the new car.
“The sky is the limit when it comes to potential, how long it will take to reach its potential is the critical question, it could take four rounds it may take longer,” Grech said.
“It’ll take a while to work out what the car will and won’t like. Remember we’re starting with a blank page; gains made through adjustability could take months.
“We hope we’ll find ultimate potential sooner rather than later but who knows, with this car we’re all pioneers.
“It’s a cautious approach that’s for sure.”
With the Hamilton round approaching the first goal is to finish.
“In New Zealand I want to achieve reliability and finish, if we can do this I’ll be satisfied,” Grech said.
“Firstly though, we need to tune the car. We’ve got no useable data because the car is so different from last years. It’ll be a challenge for the drivers and the engineers. In some ways though it’s good to debut the car at a first time event. We’re all learning together.”
