Erebus Motorsport owner Betty Klimenko has been left with a “numb” sensation after her team won its first Repco Supercars Championship titles.
Brodie Kostecki clinched the drivers’ crown with a race to spare before Erebus wrapped up the teams’ championship on the final day of the season.
The Coca-Cola Camaro squad has long been the front-runner in this year’s Supercars title race and Kostecki was the firm favourite upon arrival at the Vailo Adelaide 500 given he led Shane van Gisbergen by 131 points at the start of the weekend.
Nevertheless, the achievement has left Klimenko in something of a state of shock.
Asked upon the conclusion of the season finale how she felt, she initially responded simply, “Very tired.”
After a pause, she elaborated on her state of mind, likening it to that when Erebus won the 2017 Bathurst 1000, as well as touching upon the death earlier this year of her brother Mark.
“There’s nothing to express how you feel,” added Klimenko.
“I thought ‘Yeah, I’m gonna feel wonderful, fantastic.’ I actually feel quite numb.
“It’s been a very up-down year for me, as everyone knows.
“[Winning the championship] was like Bathurst; I wasn’t expecting it. I was outside chatting away to people and someone said, ‘You better go in there; you’re about to win Bathurst.’
“It’s the same thing here.
“It feels like everyone around me has put in a lot of effort and Brodie and everyone else, and I’ve kind of just sat back and enjoyed the view, but I know how hard everyone works.
“There isn’t… You know, the feeling… I think you’ve got to ask me about four days.”
Erebus was once considered one of Supercars’ great underdog teams, although team CEO Barry Ryan rejected that tag when it was put to him before the start of the 2023 season.
There can be no dispute though, that it is the team to beat next year and Klimenko described their new status as the ‘hunted’ in the championship as “cool.”
“I mean, to be the hunted is actually quite a compliment,” she continued.
“It’s a compliment to my team and everything else.
“We’ve done a lot of hunting, and it would be nice to settle down for a while.”
Kostecki’s final margin of victory in the drivers’ championship blew out to 323 points after van Gisbergen’s Race 28 DNF, well and truly clearing the 150-point target which Ryan had set in the last 24 hours in light of Triple Eight’s Newcastle disqualification.
While Will Brown slipped to fifth in the drivers’ championship on the final day of the season, Erebus still got up by 176 points in the teams’ championship.
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