CAMERON Hill could complete a rare Bathurst double if all goes to plan later this month.
The second-year Matt Stone Racing Supercars driver won the Bathurst 6 Hour with his own team, CHE Racing, in 2022. That triumph came sharing a BMW M2 Competition with Tom Sargent.
Hill moved into a crew chief role at the 2023 edition, guiding Dean Campbell and Cameron Crick’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evo to the A1 class win, as Jayden Ojeda and Simon Hodges won overall.
Now, Hill has the chance to repeat his 2022 heroics in conquering the Mountain – but this time as an engineer, with the Campbell/Crick combination to compete for outright victory in a new CHE-built M2.
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“We didn’t know Dean from a bar of soap, but he pitted next to us when we raced our BMW M2 in 2022,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“Obviously that went very well for us and I think he really liked what he saw and he was probably quite keen to buy the car.
“But the Sargents were very sentimental about the fact that the car we built won its first attempt, so they made the decision to keep it and it’s at the museum still at Bathurst, which is really cool.
“So, Dean then rang me and said, ‘could you build another one?’”
Hill and CHE obliged.
Unlike the last-minute assembly of the Hill/Sargent M2, Campbell’s car was completed in time for it to be put through testing and a Sandown race meeting last month where it won three of four Australian Production Car Series races.
Hill is looking forward to the tactical challenges that will be encountered during this year’s Easter enduro, with race day taking place on March 31.
“Hopefully I can engineer a win,” said the Canberran.
“The car will hopefully be fast and competitive but it’s a tricky race, especially for the Class X guys, they have got six pitstops.
“I just need to help them navigate it but I enjoy that. I have always been really interested in the strategy side of it and even with the Supercars stuff, I always like to go through it with (MSR engineer Paul) Forgie before the race, so it will be cool.
“When you’re in a class car (at the 6 Hour), you have got to be crafty and you can sometimes get a lap up on your competitors.
“It’s a different race when you’re one of the lead cars, you can kind of dictate the pace of the race. When you’re a class car you’re always like ‘where’s the leader? We don’t want to go a lap down’.”
