SPRINTCAR fans in the Limestone Coast – and around the country – will buzz with the news Brooke Tatnell will return to Australia for selected events in the 2017-18 season.
This will include the Australian Open Sprintcar Championships at the Borderline Speedway, all on board the Scott Motorsport car out of Mount Gambier.
Ray and Ash Scott announced this week the deal had been done to bring Tatnell back from America to race, in what is a real coup for the local team.
Tatnell – currently living in America – has enjoyed a decorated career, which includes an unprecedented nine World Series Sprintcars titles and 76 A Main victories in that series.
However, Tatnell will not compete for the WSS title this season, but will contest a few selected sprintcar events, including Sydney, Geelong, Mount Gambier, Warrnambool for the classic and back to Mount Gambier for the Australian title at the Borderline Speedway.
The team will change from its usual Maxim chassis to a Cool chassis to suit Tatnell, also including Tatnell’s crew chief in the deal.
Only one car will be run for those events, with Ash Scott stepping aside to ensure every chance of success.
Team owner Ray Scott said he was excited about the opportunity to bring a driver with the reputation of Tatnell to the team, but there was more to the deal than just his ability on the track, with a family connection through his father, George.
“I’m pretty excited,” Ray said.
“I was pretty good friends with George.
“When we started out, to have someone the calibre of George Tatnell, who was like a god in the sprintcar world, to give us the help he did, was good.
“George had retired when we began, but Brooke was racing.
“George would just roll up and was there to give you a hand.
“He is the one who really inspired us to go from just a weekend warrior to getting involved in the sport the way we did.
“Without people like George Tatnell, we would not have got to the standard where we are.
“George and I ended up pretty good friends, so to have Brooke come and drive for us, not only as a driver, but because of the relationship between the two families, to me is something pretty special.”
Ray said there was also another side of Tatnell many people did not see.
He said off the track he was a special kind of person.
“He is a real special sort of personality, what he is and the way he goes about it,” Ray said.
“Not just sprintcar racing, but about life in general.
“To us he is someone who is very special and we are pretty proud to have somebody of his talents mixed up with us.”
Ray said the deal was done over the phone, with many fans unsure of Tatnell’s movements for the upcoming season.
“Brooke had been with Krikkes for years, then Shane (Krikke) died of cancer,” Ray said.
“Brooke finished off the year with them then did not know what he wanted to do.
“He did not know if he wanted to come back to Australia.
“We had a couple of phone calls and he just decided he would love to come back and do the title.”
For Ash Scott it will be a chance to learn more about his craft, despite stepping aside for those specific events.
“We are only going to run the one car, so hopefully I will learn a bit more about what is going on and be able to see what is going on,” he said.
“I am just stepping back for these few races, but will do some others later on.
“It will be a good learning experience.”
That experience will include the setup of the new car, although Ash said the change in chassis should not pose any real problems for the team.
“We have been running Maxims, but to get Brooke up to speed faster we have changed to a Cool chassis, which he is comfortable with,” he said.
“That should be no real drama for us.
“Everything else we have bolts on.
“It is everything he has used before.
“It is not a huge transition – the chassis was the biggest change for us moving forward.”
Ray said the idea of running the one car was simply to be able to do the job properly and to bring the right people in to have the best opportunity at success.
“We found trying to run two cars, the workload is absolutely impossible,” he said.
“To do it properly we have decided to come back to run the one car for these series of events.
“We are looking at Brooke bringing in his own crew chief who he has worked with for a long time.
“They understand one another, they do not have to talk to one another, they just know what they want to do.”
For Ash the final was result for the team was simple – to win every night.
Ray was more philosophical.
“We want to make sure we are in the main event every night and at the pointy end at the end of the night,” he said.
“But it is motor racing … how can you know what is going happen.
“All we can do is hope we do our bit, we do everything right and we are there at the finish.”
