Walkinshaw opens race engine shop to the public

Gen3 Supercar rules see Walkinshaw race workshop pivot to build customer race and road engines

Share


Snapshot

  • Walkinshaw Andretti United Supercars engine team open to public customers for the first time
  • Bathurst-winning engine team will work on race and road cars as team principal Bruce Stewart asks to be ‘challenged’
  • Gen3 Supercars regulations will reduce the Supercars field to one engine builder per brand

Walkinshaw Andretti Racing has opened its Supercars engine shop to public customers for the first time. The same crew that currently builds the engines powering Chaz Mostert’s Supercar – as well as teammate Bryce Fullwood and both Erebus Racing Supercars – is ready to give your race or road car the ‘Walkinshaw treatment’. It doesn’t have to be a Chev or Holden engine, either.

“Our experience means that we feel that we are willing and able to look at anything,” Team Principal Bruce Stewart told Street Machine.

“Our racing DNA means that we’ve had to understand our racing engines really well, but equally those techniques are often transferrable to other makes, with principles the same across the board.”

The engine shop will certainly have more time on its hands before long. In an effort to reduce costs, the upcoming Gen3 Supercars regulations, to be implemented sometime in 2022, have mandated a single engine builder for each of the two vehicles competing: the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang.

With KRE Race Engines set to be under the bonnet of every Gen3 Camaro, Walkinshaw will no longer produce engines for its own Supercars team, nor customer Erebus Racing.

Stewart said customer response to the news has been almost overwhelming, and that the engine team isn’t limiting itself specifically race or road cars – it’s open to discuss any plan, project or idea where it may be able to use its expertise to deliver a high-level result.

“I guess the challenge is, challenge us,” Stewart says. “We’re a super experienced racing business with amazing DNA in our engine performance and reliability, and had a long time in the game.

“We want to talk to potential customers who have racing engines and who are looking at their own series and how we can assist them, but equally if there are people who have other challenges for us, we’re open to have a chat.”

That includes road-going projects of any kind, too, in a separate operation from the existing Walkinshaw Performance business.

“We are working on some programs in association with Walkinshaw Performance, but we’re more focused on racing and a bit of street machining, says Stewart.

“It’s a wider audience that we might be talking to, and it’s probably from weekend racers and club racers, but equally people who have a passion for our engine-building DNA. I’m really interested to see [which direction it goes] – it’s really exciting.”

Walkinshaw Andretti United’s engine building team is made up of long-standing members including 2014 Street Machine Summernats Champion, Warren Eustace.

“Most of our engine team have been with us for at least 10 years, and it’s even inter-generational,” Stewart says.

“We’ve got Justin Burns, who was an HRT mechanic but whose father, Neil Burns, is an absolute legend of Walkinshaw Racing, HRT and Supercar/touring car era of the past. Neil is still a good friend of the team.

“In that respect, equally, we have very experienced staff and generations of people who’ve been in our business through the Holden Racing Team days through to Walkinshaw Andretti United. They’ve seen a lot and know quite a bit about engine development.”

While the team has helped on some discreet projects before, the move to offer customers its engine-building expertise follows the Walkinshaw Group’s transition from factory Supercars team and Holden Special Vehicles operations to a customer engineering, design and racing outfit.

Walkinshaw Group currently converts Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram to right-hand drive at its Clayton operation and has also recently worked with clients including Volkswagen Australia, producing a tuned version of the VW Amarok ute offered through VW’s own dealer network across the county.

If you’re up for Walkinshaw’s crack engine team to work on your race or road car, email [email protected]

Comments