The squad expanded to a customer chassis program this year based on the work of its highly-regarded fabricator James White, who works from his home town of Mount Gambier.
The Erebus chassis quickly became a hot commodity, with Dick Johnson Racing the first customer team – and now running two White-built chassis – and Blanchard Racing Team set to follow soon with a new chassis for James Courtney.
Team 18 has also struck a relationship with Erebus, with David Reynolds now running one of White’s front clips on his Camaro.
However, despite an outside appearance of success, the program is now set for a swift end.
According to Ryan, the meticulous nature of the chassis work means it isn’t financially viable to continue – and has proven to be a regretful path.
“It was probably something we didn’t need to do. In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have done it,” Ryan said.
“It’s not a money-making thing. You don’t make money out of doing that stuff, no matter what anybody thinks.
“It’s part of the business we tried to grow and it hasn’t really done what we thought it might. So whether we make any more chassis or not, probably not. We’ll just make our own.
“The effort involved in it… the way Jimmy does his stuff, he puts in way more hours than anyone else would to build that chassis. It doesn’t make sense in the end.
“You’d have to charge twice as much as what we charge and you can’t.”
As well as the financial factor, Ryan is mindful of ensuring White remains a happy part of the Erebus business.
“It’s not a good use of his time,” he said.
“There’s probably better things that could make good money and use of his time – and stuff he really wants to do so we can keep him in our business, because he is such an asset to us.
“We don’t want to lose him. And if he gets bored, he’s going to go looking around for something else.
“Just making Supercars chassis is not really what he wants to do with his life. We’re trying to keep Jimmy in our business because he’s so important to us.”
At the same time, Ryan admits that income streams outside of the race team are a requirement for Erebus, and that the fabrication concept may be revisited in the future.
“We wanted to create a business outside of just Supercars, a bit more fabrication stuff,” he said.
“Whether we just haven’t marketed it properly, or we haven’t reached out to the right people… we wanted to get Super2 cars in and repair them and all that sort of stuff.
“We want something that can make some income to the business as well, because it’s hard to get sponsors and hard to the keep this show on the road. It’s not going to get any easier.
“We’ll see how it goes. We’ve got a lot to do but I’ve got too much to do this year because I’m trying to engineer a car as well and help a new team manager. I’ve got plenty on my plate.
“We’ll give it 12 months and I’ll see if I can get my head space back again and start again.”
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