experience m ving parts The Red Bull Racing Australia team is as finely tuned and high-performance pitch-perfect as the V8s they work on.

Story Baz McAlister Photography David Kelly

t’s not yet 8am on a chilly morning at Queensland Raceway, near Ipswich, but the black-clad men of the Red Bull Racing Australia pit crew have been running hot for hours. Many of them were up before dawn to tend to the pair of sleek, gleaming, Ired-and-blue VF Commodores ensconced side-by-side in their high-tech lair. This first day of the V8 Supercars Coates Hire Ipswich 360 weekend at the winding track 50km west of Brisbane nicknamed “the Paperclip” is practice day, but that won’t stop the Red Bull team playing to win. One by one, the $450,000 cars are shoved out into the pit lane, back wheels on castors, for a wheel-change drill. The men squat, poised, clutching their “rattle-guns”; pneumatic hoses snake upwards into an armature overhead. Four-time V8 Supercars champion ’s spotless steed, bearing the number 1, is rolled between them, three either side. Then, built-in jacks stab downwards from underneath the chassis and a vexatious noise shatters the morning stillness. The rattle-guns are jammed against the wheel nuts. BRAAAAP! The wheels are off; fresh ones are manhandled into position. BRAAAAP! They’re on. Everyone steps back, as if a doctor has yelled “clear!” in an operating theatre. Four seconds have passed. Then they do it again. And again. Team manager Adrian Burgess watches it all with interest – a ▲

Rituals … (clockwise from top left) Four-time V8 Supercars champion Jamie Whincup; Whincup and teammate sign autographs for fans; the chequered flag gets a pre-race workout; extracting engine heat in the pit garage.

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notepad and stopwatch in the tall, grey-haired Englishman’s hands. Over his shoulder I can see the numbers. 4.0, 3.9, 3.9, 3.8. He looks satisfied. “That’s what we’re aiming for,” he says. This is the Red Bull Racing Australia V8 Supercars team, the slickest race operation in the country, showing a side of motorsport not many people witness. They see blistering footage of their heroes, Whincup or his teammate Craig Lowndes, roaring around the track, but they’ll never see the months of intricate work and millions of dollars that go into making them the star drivers they are. Picture a medieval knight riding into battle – it’s an impressive, romantic image. But take a moment to consider the horde of unsung peasants who smith and sharpen his weapons, craft and polish his armour, paint his shield, and train, feed, water, saddle and shoe his horse. If any one of them screws up, he’s dishonoured, defeated, or maybe dead. This world is no different. Guard of honour … It’s still pre-race, but Red Bull team manager Adrian Burgess stands ready for action. RIGHT IN THE CENTRE OF THE RED BULL Mark Dutton and Jeromy Moore, are the rosetta team’s pit garage is a big fridge, stocked to the stones that distil a baffling array of constantly gunwales with every conceivable variety of the cascading numbers into tangible, physical taurine-infused fizzy energy drink. When you actions. What tyres will the car need? What consider the hours these men put in on a race minor adjustments must be made? How much weekend, it seems as vital as the toolboxes, fuel should be onboard? The engineers don’t computers and kilometres of cabling. if any one of this unsung perch at the Prat Perch, they stand. High stools The team’s headquarters is at Triple Eight Race horde screws up, he’s are near at hand, but “they’re only allowed to sit Engineering, at Banyo, near Brisbane airport – but down if it’s an enduro race”, I’m told. their mighty MAN transporter truck allows dishonoured, defeated, Matt Cook (or Cookie, according to his shirt) them to set up a completely self-sufficient base maybe even dead. – one of the team’s four mechanics (there are two anywhere in the country. It’s parked behind the per car) – gives me the grand tour of Whincup’s pit garage, a great dark-blue juggernaut that took Commodore. Calling it a mere “car” doesn’t quite eight months to rig up – and it’s like something out wheels or striding purposefully with a clipboard. do it justice. With its single bucket seat and banks of Star Trek. The front trailer, locked down and Whincup’s No 1 car is on the left, closest to the of levers, it’s more like the cockpit of a jet fighter. accessible only by swipe-card, is the engineers’ very end of the pit lane – as the current champ, he Popping the door, Cook first points to a silver office and briefing room, all austere white walls leads everyone else out. Lowndes’ near-identical box where the passenger seat would normally be, and whirring laptops, the bridge of the starship. No 888 car is on the right. In front of it, four excited were this not a polished, half-million-dollar bullet. The B-trailer carries the cars, all the equipment fans – Mum, Dad and two little girls – pose, with It’s empty now, but it’ll be filled with dry ice for the needed to set up the pit, and 53 tonnes of spare Dad yelling “thumbs up!” as a crew member snaps race. “It can get 20 degrees centigrade hotter in the parts – enough kit to rebuild each car from scratch. a cheeky pic. They must have won a contest – visitors car than the ambient temperature,” Cook says, “so It takes about eight hours on a Thursday night to are officially off limits in the pits, but the beaming if it’s 30 out on the track, it can be 50 in here.” The unpack the truck and set everything up in the pit, family are not the only ones for the morning. Later, dry ice feeds into the driver’s race suit, keeping but when emptied, the B-trailer becomes the a squad of Queensland Fire and Rescue Services its temperature down to between 5° and 9°. team’s quiet little sanctuary. There’s a medical personnel descends on the garage, snapping pics The driver’s comfort, Cook says, is paramount. bay at the front, the domain of the team’s cheery of everything they see. At first I assume this is “The car might only be good to handle 95 per physio, Chris Brady; at his massage table, he does some kind of safety check, but it quickly becomes cent of the track conditions, but if [Whincup] is for the drivers what the mechanics do for the cars. apparent they’re in for a stickybeak. One white- comfortable, it doesn’t matter. He’ll push that extra The pit itself is the nerve centre of the operation, haired chap saunters past, eyes wide, grinning few per cent. If he’s not comfortable, he won’t.” almost a living thing. Its skin is canvas pit walls like a schoolboy, enthusing into his phone: “It’s Cook calls the yoke-like steering wheel the and thick, black rubber matting. Its bones are the unbelievable, mate. I’m right here where they “brains trust” of the Holden – adjustable to the interwoven bright yellow trelliswork; the cabling keep the cars. Everything’s computerised!” millimetre, it’s festooned with buttons, everything snaking around them its arteries, and the vast In fact, the deluge of data is overwhelming to from a pit lane speed limiter (40km/h) to a button banks of computer monitors its heart. the layman’s eye. At the rear of the pit is a monitoring that pipes a drink into the driver’s helmet. I resist And around it all scurries the team, resplendent station, a bank of screens presided over by a chap asking if it pipes in Red Bull. I do remark that in shiny black shirts, sewn patches on their sleeves whose shirt proclaims him as Irish. Telemetry is there’s no speedo. “He drives on instinct,” Cook proclaiming their colourful nicknames: Gooey. fed back to here from the “Prat Perch” – a column says. “We can put it up there on the display in Nackers. Wazza. Shady. There’s always someone of monitors front-and-centre, right between the two the centre of the wheel for him, but we don’t. ▲ coming or going, manhandling a stack of spent cars. Here, Burgess and the team’s two engineers, He doesn’t need to know how fast he’s going.”

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first time today the pit crew has moved so slowly. They pace, seemingly adrift without a car to focus on, intent on the audio feed, or eyeing the trackside camera feeds coming in on the monitors to catch a glimpse of their babies as they roar past. In the centre of it all, team owner Roland Dane has made an appearance, observing his empire from behind dark sunnies, arms crossed. Dane and his right-hand men watch as the Prat Perch monitors display multicoloured dots, representing the cars as they whip around the Paperclip. Suddenly: “Nice and easy, into the garage” from Moore, the engineer, crackles over the headset. Moments later, Luff pulls into the pit and the 888 car’s crew explodes into action, swarming the vehicle with tools. The car’s jacks stab down again, lifting it. BRAAAAP! go the rattle-guns as the wheels are swapped. Two men carry robust laptops, opening the passenger door and jacking them in Gentlemen, start your engines … Pit crew stand by as the with blue cable. Moore opens the driver’s door and WE’RE IN A RED BULL-BRANDED GOLF CART, co-drivers warm up the race cars for Lowndes and Whincup. leans in close, intensely conversing with Luff. Then, and there’s no speedo, so Craig Lowndes doesn’t it’s all over. “Roll out,” crackles the instruction, know how fast he’s going – but he’s fanging it like and four of the crew put their hands on the bonnet he’s chasing a sixth Bathurst win. The sport’s and shove the car back out into the pit lane. reigning champ, Whincup, perches on the back, Lowndes, who’s been watching from the back, wolfing down the last of a sandwich and fiddling gets the signal to suit up: 15 minutes. He heads with his smartphone. “Hey, there’s Craig!” excited for the transporter, graciously signing a few final dads say to their little kids as we treat the milling I REMARK THAT THERE’S NO autographs on the way. The wheels from Luff’s crowds like slow-moving chicanes. SPEEDO. “HE DRIVES ON first few laps, stacked four high, are pushed past Lowndes pulls up at the Red Bull merchandise me on castors by a gloved crewman, intense heat tent, in another part of the paddock. The tent is INSTINCT … HE DOESN’T pouring off them. It’s like standing next to a Weber. heaving with fans, a vast secular temple where NEED TO KNOW HOW FAST.” In no time at all, Lowndes is back, cool-suited worshippers can deposit an offering and in return and helmeted – a photo of his kids stencilled on the be blessed with polos, tees, jackets, drink bottles, back of his lid. “Right, come on in, and we’ll be stubby coolers, flags, umbrellas, and a free can of WE’RE now CLOSE TO TODAY’S MAIN EVENT. getting you to step out, please, sir,” Moore radios Red Bull if they drop more than $75. A digital clock on the pit wall has been ticking to Luff. It’s time to let the main man get a turn at Outside, by a little autograph table, the zealots down the seconds all day until Practice 1, in the the wheel. A smiling Luff claps Lowndes on the wait patiently in line – and to a ragged cheer, the early afternoon, when these two spectacular cars shoulder warmly as he gets out of 888, and his drivers take their seats. This is the other side of will get a run. Lowndes ensconces himself in the mate buckles in. Over on the other side of the pit, what they do. On the track they’re required to be relative quiet of the back of the transporter. In the Dumbrell has similarly yielded his seat to Whincup. focused, furrowed-browed, serious. Here, they’re pit, the crew wipe down the cars, making sure the The whole day’s been leading up to this. The required to smile, pose, make small talk … and windscreens and stickering are spotless – looking cars are tuned to perfection, trialled on the track, sign anything thrust in front of them. Lowndes good is just as vital as performing well. and now the missing piece of machinery has been holds a black Texta and silver Sharpie in the This is the co-drivers’ time to shine – the pair inserted into each: the drivers. Lowndes’ crew lines same hand, seamlessly flicking between the two who will warm up the cars for Lowndes and up in front of his car again, shoves it backwards into as he’s presented with a steady stream of shirts, Whincup, and iron out the kinks. Pulling a helmet the pit lane. “Just go for two or three laps, see how caps, posters. The posters, free from a bin outside over his unruly shock of blond hair, Movie World you feel,” Moore’s voice crackles. As the mighty the pits, depict a stern, steely-eyed Lowndes and stunt driver Warren “Luffy” Luff clambers into V8 under the bonnet growls, car 888 leaps forward Whincup standing back-to-back, flanked by their Lowndes’ car; taking Whincup’s for a spin will be and is gone, leaving its black-clad custodians cars, like statuesque Spartan warriors. It’s hard right Paul Dumbrell, heir to the Autobarn chain, dubbed standing in the pit lane. There a slight shift in now to marry that image with the jocular chaps “The CEO”. There’s no fanfare as the practice race demeanour as they get Lowndes and Whincup signing a little box set of model Team Vodafone gets under way. Luff and Dumbrell pull out as if under way; walking back into the pit, they’re cars. Standing behind them, looking on, decked they’re just popping down to the IGA for a carton grinning, chatting, even play-fighting a little. out in my own Red Bull cap and shirt, I’m of milk, joining the little traffic jam of cars in the Relaxed. Relieved. But still ready for action. mistaken for a bouncer two or three times. pit lane, and suddenly it’s on. You’ll never hear a commentator utter any of To get back to the pit, the drivers must plough The pits have an odd atmosphere when the cars their names, but for want of any one of these men through another press of fans. Lowndes and are gone. Everyone’s wired in to walkie-talkies so the race could be lost. They know it, the drivers Whincup are good sports, signing what they can they can speak to each other, but only the engineers know it, and that’s enough for them. l on the move. Even the 3m dash from pit to the at the Prat Perch can talk to the drivers. I’m hooked The Bathurst Supercheap Auto 1000 is on this weekend. haven of the transporter is to run the gauntlet. up to hear the clipped chatter. All around, it’s the Armor All Gold Coast 600, Oct 25-27, Surfers Paradise.

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