Erebus Motorsport will run its own logo in place of the Holden lion badge on its ZB Commodores at this weekend’s Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint.
The change comes amid a shortage of badges from Holden, with the team taking the opportunity to instead run the Erebus ‘e’ on the front of David Reynolds’ and Anton de Pasquale’s cars.
Team owner Betty Klimenko says that the move, which the team has indicated may last for the rest of the season, is personally significant to her.
“It is very special to me,” said Klimenko.
“I have an ‘e’ tattooed on my right forearm and it has two meanings; obviously the first being for Erebus, my team in both Supercars and GTs.
“My team gave me a sense of purpose, brought balance to me, and the awareness of team and family.
“I am travelling around Australia with my husband and meeting some of the nicest people.”
She says that the second is a reference to her late mother, who passed away 48 years ago.
“Her name was Eta, so that is the second reason, to honour my mother,” explained Klimenko.
“Having our badge gives me a sense of pride and humbleness, and at the same time I am so proud of my teams, past and present, and what they have achieved.”
General Manager Barry Ryan added, “We are currently struggling to get grille badges from Holden so we took the opportunity to ask Supercars if we could run our own badge.
“Supercars approved this and we made our own Erebus ‘e’ badges with our in-house 3D printing machine.
“It is something Betty has always wanted so we took the opportunity to do it.”
Erebus is not the first team to run alternate badges in place of those of the brand of car.
Triple Eight Race Engineering most notably ran ‘Hogster’ badges depicting then-sponsor Hog’s Breath Café’s mascot on the grilles of its Falcons in 2009, its last year with Ford after losing factory support from the Blue Oval.
Virgin Australia Supercars Championship action at Symmons Plains begins with Practice 1 on Friday from 1130 local time/AEST.