Since the finish of the last season, the series has changed hands with Crutcher, Graham Cheney and Paul Hadley have taken over the ownership and the running from Peter Robinson.
Crutcher who is a two-time and reigning Masters title holder within the series, along with wife Melissa, run the category and may have to approach his racing in a different manner.
“I already feel it might be a little bit more difficult to race to be honest,” he admitted in the leadup to the first round at Winton Motor Raceway this weekend.
“I now have to go into the race meeting with a lot more responsibility and have other things to worry about.
“I’m lucky that I’ve got my wife, Matt (MacKelden) and all the team who are there to run the race meeting, which I will have no part of. I’m there as a participant.
“It’ll be interesting when I see a gap open. Will I take it or not? In the old days, I would have, but now . . . I don’t want to approach it any different, I still do it the same way as I always have, but it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.”
Crutcher is a relatively newcomer to motor racing and introduced to it by Ian McAlister who Crutcher allegedly tricked him.
“He asked me to come to Winton one day for a test day and give him a hand. Phil Alexander was there of a Pulsar in which I had half a practice day.”
He was addicted straight away and brought a Pulsar that day. The move to TA2 was also instigated by McAlister who wanted to sell his Camaro and update to a Mustang in line with his Ford dealership.
“The first season, I just trailed behind everybody learning my craft,” he added. Seven years down the track, Crutcher is a top five outright runner and is now a part owner.
“We knew it was a pretty good business, I knew I needed help, and straight away, I just thought of Paul and Graham, who had great ethics and are wonderful people. So, I reached out to them to give it a crack.”
It took somewhere around two or three months to sort through and probably would not have happen without the support of his wife.
“She’s a big part of the business now. Melissa and I basically run the business fulltime. It was PBR and is now called HCC Distributions. The other two still have their own jobs and make up the board.
“We came from having five IGA stores and 300 staff that worked just for us. Thankfully we still have some wonderful staff that also work at PBR, HCC and TA2,” Crutcher concluded.
The TFH Hire TA2 Muscle Car Series Presented by Maritimo will field 22 cars for Round 1 at Winton Motor Raceway as part of the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series.
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