142 whichcar.com.au/wheels
Stahl, taking an unusual approach to the subject, first
introduced readers to two young hopefuls – Darren Hossack
and Darren Pate – before spending wheel time in a Gibson
Motorsport Commodore V8 Supercar.
Pate, just 23, and Hossack, 28, joined Wynn’s Racing
team, run by Gibson Motorsport (race legend Fred Gibson’s
longstanding team), for the 1998 V8 Supercars series. Stahl’s
quest was to discover what’s essential in order to operate at
the top level of Australia’s premier race series. Hossack, who
won the 1994 Australian Karting Championship, and Pate,
an apparently brilliant networker who turned up to meet
Stahl in somebody else’s Lotus Esprit V8, both put fitness
at the top of the mandatory list: personal trainers, gym-time
and bike riding.
Says Hossack, “You need a mix of aerobic fitness and
muscular endurance, but also a mixture of power and
strength movements in your training – especially power
movements, because they’re related to reaction times.”
Pate also spent plenty of time chasing personal
sponsorship. “Some days will be chock-a-block doing
sponsors meetings, y’know chasing a lot personal sponsors.
That’s what I really base myself on, which is what enables
me to do this full-time. So that I can spend time training.”It’s obvious from all the talk that both aimed for a career
as a professional touring car driver.
Then it was Stahly’s turn: “Everything in your career has
been building up to this 10-lap test at Calder Park”. There’s
no sense of intimidation in Stahl’s words – after all, he was
sufficiently handy to take a class win in the 1997 Bathurst
three-hour Showroom Showdown race when, in true Peter
Brock-style, he set the fastest lap of the class on the last lap
in the Falcon XR6 he drove with fellow journos Chris Nixon
and Paul Gover.
“It’s obviously catapult-quick, but the linearity of the
racing V8’s power delivery makes it feel little different from
HSV’s hottest, 215kW road cars. Chassis, aerodynamics and
tyres all help mask the fact that you’re dealing with more
than twice that amount of horsepower.
“The biggest difference between this and a road car is the
racer’s ability to just set into a corner and hang there; no
lazy slewing or screeching on its sidewalls. Not that there is
limitless grip. Throttle and the almost road-car-light steering
inputs still have the same effects, but the responses are so
much sharper and slicker.”
There can be no doubt this story helped Stahl earn the
Australian Motoring Journalist of the Year award in 1998.V8 with a
vengeance
PETER ROBINSON’SFIRST PUBLISHED JUNE 1998EPIC TALES FROM OUR ARCHIVES“CHASSIS, AERODYNAMICS AND TYRES ALL HELP MASK THE FACT THAT YOU’RE DEALING
WITH MORE THAN TWICE THE HORSEPOWER OF AN HSV ROAD CAR”
Classic
AMONG THE BEST OF THE MANY WHEELS’ FEATURE STORIES ON AUSTRALIA’S V8
SUPERCARS SERIES IS MICHAEL STAHL’S ‘V8 WITH A VENGEANCE’ FROM 1998.