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Triple Eight Race Engineering and Dick Johnson Racing will be more than just pit lane neighbours at this year’s Great Race.
In a quirky development, confirmed to Speedcafe by Supercars, the Chevrolet and Ford homologation teams will in fact be sharing a boom and pit bay at the Repco Bathurst 1000.
The reason is because both have opted to field a wildcard at Mount Panorama, meaning each will have a third car serviced from the opposite end of pit lane to their full-time entries.
With DJR’s wildcard tilt at the Great Race now also locked in, it has been confirmed that the #98 Shell V-Power Mustang of Simona De Silvestro/Kai Allen will operate out of the same bay in the Mount Panorama lane.
The situation is certainly not unprecedented, although it is unusual in a time when just the Blanchard Racing Team competes with an odd number of cars on a regular basis.
Triple Eight’s Supercheap Auto car was paired up with the Boost Mobile-backed Erebus Motorsport wildcard entry in pit lane at the most recent running of the Great Race while, in 2021, Walkinshaw Andretti United and Tickford Racing experienced likewise when they each fielded a wildcard in three sprint events.
That was eye-catching enough given WAU was once the Holden Racing Team and still fielded ZB Commodores at the time, while Tickford began as the factory Ford team, but the challenge then was conflicting oil sponsors in Mobil 1 and Castrol respectively.
This time around, it will be a meeting of the present-day homologation teams, and that is not all.
Triple Eight’s full-time entries are known commercially as ‘Red Bull Ampol Racing’, whereas DJR is the ‘Shell V-Power Racing Team’.
Furthermore, Supercheap Auto and Repco, the latter of which is one of DJR’s prominent partners, are also direct commercial rivals.
Typically, teams in such situations share crew members for pit stops, although it could create extra tension in terms of pit priority given the risk of a double stack.
That was borne out last time DJR had to share a boom with another team, when it was paired with Tekno Autosports in 2015 given both ran single-car operations at the time.
DJR Team Penske’s Scott Pye and Tekno’s Jonathon Webb were embroiled in a willing battle for third place when rain started to fall on Lap 92 of that year’s Bathurst 1000, with the latter running off at The Chase as he tried to reclaim the position moments before both pitted.
While Triple Eight and DJR are fierce on-track rivals, there is already some level of collaboration between the two squads given, for example, they tend to share test day bookings as both are based in South East Queensland.
The Supercheap Auto Camaro operated alone in pit lane at Hidden Valley, in its only race event so far in 2023, as did BRT’s #3 Mustang.
BRT is, however, expected to field a wildcard in the Bathurst 1000, although that endeavour is yet to be confirmed.
The Great Race of 2023 takes place on the weekend of October 5-8.
