“I'm the engineer, tuner, pit crew and everything in between,” she said.
Dave Brew said that with such a high-spec racecar, the work that had to be done on it was highly specialised and Rebecca was right in the thick of it, learning the trade.
“Some of this stuff, you couldn't even pay them to teach you,” he said.
“These people just have to see something in you.”
Dave and Rebecca have to travel regularly to the Infomotive Ltd garage in Rotorua for some of the more detailed upgrades, and they've had some late nights working on the car after the workshop closing time.
“These sponsors are so important to us,” Dave said.
“Their help allows us to go up against the big guys.
“Being from Gisborne, we're looked on as underdogs. Some of the drivers we race against are pro-level.
“Without the sponsors, like Harris Tyres and BNT Automotive, it wouldn't be possible for us to race. It's local people behind a local team.”
The turbo was a new addition for the 2020 season, improving their lap times from being 10 seconds behind to crushing the front-runners.
It took about a week of labour to install, and they weren't sure how well it would work, Dave said.
“Jason from Infomotive used it as a testbed to show what the turbos were capable of in a street-legal car with race-quality parts.”
Rebecca and Dave built their car themselves, transforming it from a shell into a custom racing machine.
While its straight-line speed is quick due to its power-to-weight ratio, the car's real speed comes in the corners and under braking.
After they've spent hundreds of hours in the garage getting their car ready, it all comes down to a series of eight-minute sessions trying to get the fastest possible lap time.
“By the time you've got the temperatures up in the tyres and the brakes, there's only time for one ‘push lap' to make that fastest time each session,” Dave said.
“I learnt it's all about that one lap. All or nothing.
“You're chasing points and at the end of the day if you don't get first, you don't get the max points.”
In circuit racing, you were driving against the clock rather than other cars, so it could be hard to find where the limit was, he said.
“If you go for a fast lap in your first lap (with cold tyres and brakes), you'll end up in the wall or off in the kitty litter (gravel trap) . . . and you're out there with $140,000 cars.
“When you're pushing that hard, you're not really looking at the gauges, but smooth is fast.”
Rebecca, who has previously raced in the Super Lap Series herself in the same car, plans to race it again in the 2022 season.
She also has her eyes on a speedway debut, with ambitions to race in the production saloons.
