IN 2003 Erik Pender was the race engineer behind Greg Murphy's famous 'Lap of the Gods' at Mount Panorama, now he is helping Bathurst's Schumacher Motorsport as it prepares to step up to the national level.
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Last week at Sydney Motorsport Park as Brad Schumacher cut his first laps behind the wheel of the Audi R8 LMS Ultra GT3 he plans to race in this year's Australian GT Championship, Pender was there to help.
His assistance in setting up the car helped Schumacher quickly feel at home.
"I honestly haven't stepped into a car ever and felt as comfortable as I have in the Audi," he said.
"The Audi is obviously not a simple car, it's very complex. It has the latest technology basically which is provided in any tin-top race car, but fortunately Audi now supplies us with really good on track and off track support.
"We were very fortunate to have Erik Pender give us the tools to run the car and get the most out of the car. He's the guy who was responsible for the 'Lap of the Gods' back in 2003, so he certainly knows his way around the car.
"We got better results than we were expecting, so it was actually quite a successful day."
Having someone of Pender's pedigree - not only was he behind Murphy's famous lap but Christopher Mies' 1:59.2910 record at the 2018 Challenge Bathurst - was one of the big reasons Schumacher opted to switch to an Audi for his maiden tilt in a national series.
"Ultimately we made the decision to steer away from the Porshes we've been racing in the past mainly because of the support that Audi Customer Racing provides under their program in the GT format," he said.
"We are stepping up to the national series, the Australian GT. It was basically based off our performance at a state level in Production Sports, where we've now got two championships under our belt.
"One was back in 2017 in a Lotus, outright championships winner, and then in 2018 we won the Production Sports championship outright in a Porsche 997. Then in 2019 we decided to enter into the CUE Endurance Series and came third outright in that series as well in the Porsche 911.
"So we thought that it was time to step up into the national series and have a go at the top step of GT racing in Australia."
While Schumacher himself is looking forward to the challenge, so are the other members of the Schumacher Motorsport team.
They include Matt Walther, who has previously travelled across Australia and Europe with R-Motorsport, and mechanic Justin Beattie. The team also has the support of Geoff Foreshaw, who is a "renowned race mechanic who maintains and runs Audis".
"We've got the right people in our corner, really now it's up to me to do my job and be quick," Schumacher said.
"Based off the times we put down on the car in our first test sessions last week - we got the car down into the low 1:31s on used tyres. Looking over the race paces times, that's the window you need to be running in to be at the front end of the pack."
Schumacher Motorsport's debut in the Australian GT Series is set to come on their home track - Mount Panorama - as one of the support categories for the Bathurst 1000.