Mick Nicola and crew have written themselves into the record books by becoming just the third team in history to complete a hat-trick of Victorian Super Sedan Series titles.
“It’s our third time in a row which is a huge achievement and one of the only others in history to get the hat-trick was my dad,” Nicola said.
With a custom-built chassis boasting more than 700 horsepower, ‘Junior’ Nicola, Shaun Lowe, Allan Burkett and PJ Appleton sealed the win over eight rounds across the state.
“We started the season not too bad and were just in the top five and managed to wiggle our way to win the series,” Nicola said.
The Latrobe Valley crew emerged the best of 30 after the 2017/18 season – just reward for countless hours of hard work.
“It’s been a lot of nights on the car, and as they say a lot of races are won in the shed so we do a lot of maintenance at night and the guys come up during the week and help – sometimes until midnight,” Nicola said.
“It’s a lot of travelling too. We leave really early on Saturday and a lot of the time [we are] gone most of the weekend.
“Over the six months we do about 15 weekends of racing, which is still a fair bit.”
He didn’t get behind the wheel until he was 28 but Nicola said it was his dad’s passion that forced his hand.
“I started going along to watch dad when I was younger for at least 20-plus years,” he said.
“I started late but raced motorbikes for a while before and just came across from there.”
The father-son duo have gone head-to-head in the past.
“When we race each other there’s a bit of rivalry but we enjoy that part of that, but during the week he’s always helping,” he said.
