YOU may be surprised to learn that 41 chassis competing at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 have come out of a single workshop.
The man who created them certainly is.
Pace Innovations has gone from strength-to-strength since it was founded by South African Paul Ceprnich in 2006.
Armed with experience including a Le Mans winning campaign with BMW and a stint with Paul Morris Motorsports in Supercars, Ceprnich found a niche with Pace.
Fast-forward to this weekend and 41 of the 63 locally-built cars in action at the event have come from Pace’s shop in Yatala, north of the Gold Coast.
“I was watching the categories roll out over the weekend, and I couldn’t believe how many cars that have come from Pace Innovations,” said Ceprnich.
“It really took me by surprise. I am very proud of what we have achieved over the past 17 years – seeing so many cars that we have played a major part in being here on the Gold Coast and Australian motorsport in general.
“We will continue to build and construct chassis for our industry, and we have more projects on the go now which we are really looking forward to unveiling in the future.”
Pace constructed 15 of the new Gen3 Supercars in the field, as well as supplying every team with common chassis kits and other control components including exhaust systems.
The Supercars teams with Pace-built Gen3 chassis are Brad Jones Racing, Matt Stone Racing, Blanchard Racing Team, Tickford Racing, Dick Johnson Racing and Grove Racing.
Ceprnich’s company began its work in the category supplying partly built chassis to teams late in the Project Blueprint era.
It did the same during the Car of the Future/Gen2 era that followed, having designed the control platform for the championship.
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Pace also constructed all 21 SuperUtes racing on the Surfers streets this weekend, including the roll-cage, complete rear axle carriers, front hubs and the control braking systems.
In the Sports Sedans, five cars including MARC 1’s and 2’s, along with the new IRC GT, also run by MARC Cars, have all come from their Gold Coast factory.
The only category at the event that Pace has not built cars for is the Porsche Carrera Cup, but even then there is some involvement.
To allow for the Surfers new kerb sensor system, Pace was commissioned to design and supply a common transponder mount for all the cars to align with the system used by Supercars.
Ceprnich is at the Gold Coast street event this weekend, acting as engineer and driver coach for Porsche Carrera Cup Pro-Am leader Sam Shahin.
