THE Erebus Academy has put another four youngsters through their paces, including facilitating the return of the Bargwanna name to a Supercar cockpit.
Jude Bargwanna, the teenaged son of Scott and nephew of 2000 Bathurst 1000 winner Jason, was among the quartet granted the opportunity to drive the Erebus Mercadore around Winton Motor Raceway.
Joining him across the past two days was S5000 racer Blake Purdie and New Zealanders William Exton and Matthew McCutcheon.
Erebus Motorsport Supercars regulars Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown were on-hand, as was Car #99 race engineer George Commins.
“The experience was really cool and jumping into something with a lot of grip compared to what I’m used to in Formula Ford was a surprise,” said Bargwanna.
“It’s a credit to the Erebus Motorsport team for organising such a good experience and creating a cool opportunity for us.
“I think it’s a really important experience for my career to see how I fare up against more experienced drivers like Brown and Kostecki.
“To work with such an experienced team and engineers, it’s really critical for my career.”
Bargwanna is competing this year in the Australian Formula Ford Championship and combined with cousin Ben to finish outright ninth (second in the A1 class) at the Bathurst 6 Hour in April.
Erebus CEO Barry Ryan hailed the initiative a success on the whole.
“Matthew, William, Blake and Jude did a fantastic job for their first experiences in a Supercar, it is very rewarding providing these talented young men the opportunity to drive one of our cars and see them go from learning off in-car vision and data to putting it into real world practice,” he said.
“Motorsport and Supercars will be the winner not if, but when any of these drivers get to be full time main game drivers in the future.
“They all have talent to burn and great individual personalities to go with it, we really look forward to supporting them all on their journeys to becoming professional racing drivers in the future.”
It follows the Erebus Academy fielding Callum Hedge, Jordyn Sinni, Tom Hayman and Kyle Gurton in an earlier edition of its ‘Who’s Next’ program in June.
