The squad has slipped down the pecking order this season after the exit of star driver Brodie Kostecki, co-driver Todd Hazelwood and key engineers to Dick Johnson Racing.
Kostecki’s replacement Cooper Murray is 23rd in the championship amid a rough rookie campaign but scored an encouraging seventh at The Bend with debutant co-driver Jobe Stewart.
Murray and Stewart both shone at Bathurst last year, the former driving Triple Eight’s Supercheap Auto Great Race wildcard and the latter scoring a maiden race win in Super2.
“We’re only going there to win,” Ryan told Speedcafe of Bathurst. “We’ve got massive belief. We saw what Cooper could do last year, he had top five pace.
“I think if we can roll out a car that’s strong, we’ve got massive confidence that Jobe can be as fast as any co-driver. That’s all you need.
“If Cooper can tick his box, put it in the Shootout and be at the front of the grid… based on last year, you’re going to have to be on the front-row or pole to win, you’re not going to win from 10th.
“So we’ve got to qualify good and then just execute during the race. I think we’ve got as good a chance as anyone to win. I don’t go to Bathurst for anything else.”
Erebus is determined to retain the perpetual Peter Brock Trophy, which team owner Betty Klimenko proudly keeps at her home in New South Wales’ Southern Highlands.
Klimenko personally couriered the trophy to Sydney and back for the recent Bathurst 1000 media launch function on September 1, where it was used in group driver photoshoots.
It’s widely known that she’s made it clear to Supercars that the trophy should not be used in promotions with Kostecki and Hazelwood in DJR uniform.
Regardless, Kostecki and Hazelwood will again be hard to beat at Mount Panorama this year, as evidenced by the combination’s first-up enduro win with DJR at The Bend on Sunday.
Asked of DJR’s success with the ex-Erebus ingredients, Ryan said: “It’s disappointing, but we did it with them, everyone else is just taking what we did and trying to emulate it.
“They did a great job [on Sunday]. We’ll take the credit for it. It’s an Erebus chassis and Erebus drivers.
“You never want to lose people but to see them keep succeeding is good, knowing we were a part of it, and we could be a part of it again, making sure we beat them in the future.”
A deal struck late last year for DJR to adopt Erebus chassis added to an unusual dynamic between the teams, given the driver and engineer defections.
It was part of a broader plan for Erebus to exploit its early Gen3 success by opening its doors to customers. But that door has now firmly shut, as Ryan first flagged back in June.
“It didn’t work for us. We’ve got chassis we want to build for ourselves next year and [fabricator] Jimmy [White] is a one-man band, we just don’t have time to build multiple chassis,” he said.
“We regret doing it, we should have never done it, but it’s a thing you’ve got to sometimes try. We’ll just get on with being the independent team we’ve always been.
“If [DJR] want more in the future they aren’t going to get them off us.”
DJR is believed to be acquiring an un-raced Erebus-built chassis from the Blanchard Racing Team, which is set to link with Triple Eight next season.
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