BETTY Klimenko’s rollercoaster 2023 just reached a new high.
The Erebus Motorsport team she founded has been the class of the Repco Supercars Championship field, and today star driver Brodie Kostecki soared to pole position for the Bathurst 1000 – despite a moment at Hell Corner.
Kostecki and co-driver David Russell are now even more firmly entrenched as favourites for the Great Race, an event Erebus has won once before in 2017 via David Reynolds and Luke Youlden.
“I am elated but also dumbfounded,” Klimenko told V8 Sleuth.
“I knew it was possible, I knew the odds were in our favour, I knew that everyone had done the stats and said, ‘Brodie is going to get pole’, but until he actually did it, I was like, ‘okay just don’t talk to me, I’ve got faith in him, he just has to do it’. And then he did.
“And until my husband (Daniel) tells me he did it, I don’t take anyone’s word, not even the television.”
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But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Klimenko, who revealed she’d been dealing with the death of her 59-year-old brother, Mark.
“This has been a very bittersweet year for me,” she said.
“On one hand I’ve got this amazing team that are doing this amazing job and it doesn’t matter what happens, the worst we can do in the teams’ championship is second.
“And then on the other hand, it’s only been 10 weeks since my brother passed away.
“So I’m balancing the good and the bad and then one will trigger the other off.
“I just can’t say how proud I am of this team, the effort and the work.
“It wasn’t just another year, they thought, ‘Gen3, we’re going to get into it, we’re going to know it like the back of our hand’, and that’s what they did.
“We put the work in. We put it in last year and over the Christmas holidays. No one took a break; they worked.
“We built our own chassis with the most amazing fabricator, Jimmy White, and every single person on our team knows every single point on that car.
“They’ve worked hard and they’ve done it the Barry (Ryan, CEO) way.
“We haven’t lost the hill out of the billy yet, we’re still that team, we’re just a little bit more professional when we go out. And we’ve learnt how to be that.”
Klimenko had endless praise for 25-year-old Kostecki, culminating in: “He has made himself a path and we’re just all walking behind him.”
But the job is only half done, and 161 gruelling laps await tomorrow.
“I know my nerves will go halfway through the day, my stomach will swell, I’ll tell people to be quiet, I’ll throw people out of the garage because when I get nervous, I can’t stand noise,” said Klimenko.
“But at the end of the day, what will be, will be.
“Hopefully, if we all do our jobs right and Brodie does his job right and no other car decides to not do their job right and go spearing into us, hopefully we will be up the pointy end.”
Erebus’ other Coca-Cola Camaro, the #9 of Will Brown/Jack Perkins, will start 17th after a crash in Friday qualifying.
“They can do it. If anyone can do it, Will and Jack can do it,” said Klimenko.
“They bounce off each other very well. It is a long day and I’m sure they will get up there. Will always does, he bounces back so well.”
A 20-minute warm-up from 8am AEDT will precede race start at 11:15am.
