Erebus Motorsport owner Betty Klimenko says she would still consider selling her Supercars team if the right buyer came along.
The comments come just days after it was revealed South Australian businessman Aaron Hickmann of lighting technology company Vailo had failed to acquire the team.
In an interview with motorsport outlet Auto Action, the category’s only female team owner said she had achieved everything she wanted to in Supercars.
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After winning the Bathurst 1000 in 2017 with David Reynolds and Luke Youlden, the team claimed the other two major scalps in the drivers’ championship with Brodie Kostecki and the teams’ championship in 2023.
In May, news broke of a potential sale. In late June, Steven Johnson said on his radio show The Driver’s Seat that Klimenko would not be selling the team. WWOS sought to speak with Klimenko after those claims were made but was denied that opportunity.
Although Klimenko did not name Hickmann, this publication does not believe there was another bid for the team.
In the three-page interview, Klimenko claimed a news article led the prospective buyer to withdraw its bid.
“I thought we had somebody. It was hush-hush, but it was very ‘maybe, maybe not’,” she explained.
“Then an article came out from another media source and they said, “No, this just says that it was only Kostecki that was keeping you up there, that made you great, so I don’t think we’ll be buying!” I think I lost it then. That was when I really lost it.
“I was ready to fight a good fight and I wrote a thousand emails… they’re still sitting in my drafts… Like I said, it’s not the sport that I bought into, that I came into 10 years ago.”
Klimenko said she would consider selling the team again if the prospective buyer(s) had the right intentions and stumped up a big enough offer.
“Being honest, yes I probably would,” she said when asked about whether she would sell the team.
“I’ve had 10 years there. I’ve ticked every box. This is from my own perspective, not from anywhere else. But I wouldn’t just sell it to anyone.
“I would not just sell it to someone who wanted a Supercar team to put in their back pocket. I would only sell it to someone who had the same love and enthusiasm for the sport.”
Johnson speculated on The Driver’s Seat that Klimenko had let go of the team’s CEO Barry Ryan. Erebus told WWOS they expected Ryan to return after his holiday and Klimenko said in the latest interview that he is still part of the team.
“When I read that, I thought, who on earth would even think that?” said Klimenko.
“I’ve stuck with Barry through all the shit and then decided to get rid of him? Why would I get rid of a man who got me a GT championship, a GT 12-hour win, a Bathurst 1000 win, a Supercars drivers’ championship win and a team’s championship win? I mean, would that be good business? No, it wouldn’t.”
The interview also detailed some of the fallout from Kostecki’s rocky spell at the start of the season.
In January, it was reported by Speedcafe that Kostecki would miss the season opener at Mount Panorama amid bubbling discontent.
Erebus confirmed Kostecki would sit out the first Supercars event a day later and denounced the report speculating a split with the team was imminent.
After Kostecki returned to the team following a two-round absence, WWOS revealed Erebus had threatened to take legal action against him for allegedly causing the team to suffer significant losses after he sought to terminate his contract.
In the letter, Erebus alleged Kostecki’s communications with sponsors led them to pull support.
Sponsors who spoke to WWOS on the condition of anonymity earlier this year said there were multiple reasons why they withdrew support from Erebus, including but not limited to a wholesale driver line-up change after Will Brown also departed at the end of 2023.
Klimenko said the issue was “small and innocent” and created a “bag of lies and innuendo and finger-pointing”.
Klimenko would not be drawn on the reason why Kostecki stepped away from the team because “By law we weren’t allowed to say anything” and likened her driver’s absence to a footballer suffering a hamstring injury. Klimenko said Kostecki “needed to have two rounds off for him to fix a problem” and that had been resolved.
“What happened at the beginning of this year astounded me. It was something that went from being a very, very small thing,” said Klimenko.
“We were asked to keep something private and confidential. We agreed. We didn’t say anything, and that was the end of the story.
“That was the whole story, and I was amazed at the way some media and fans and some ‘not-so-fans’ jumped on it like it was ‘Who killed JFK?'”
Of the sponsors splitting with the team, she explained: “None of them wanted to know. Not that I could actually tell them the truth. But I could explain it to them as close as I could get. None of them, not one single sponsor rang me. They just walked.
“They listened to the lies of a few people on the outer edges of Erebus that thought this is how we can ‘tall-poppy’ them. They listened to them.
“I did actually speak to one of the sponsors, but all they did while I was on the phone was abuse me. Told me I had bad business ethics. Told me how I should be running my business. Then hung up on me and didn’t even give me a chance to explain anything. Then there was another one who just didn’t want to be caught up in the drama and left.
“But you’ve got to understand, we already had all our uniforms done for the year. We had millions of dollars of investment already in this year… It cost some people a hell of a lot of money.”