THE MAN BEHIND PREMIAIR RACING

AUTO ACTION – NEWS EXTRA

One of the big questions heading to 2022 was how the new the newcomers to the Supercars grid, PremiAir Racing would fare, and with the season nearly over it appears to be exceeding expectations.

Less than a year after taking over the ashes of Team Sydney, Peter Xiberras has brought PremiAir Racing back from consistent back marker to regularly threaten top 10.

The journey has not been without its challenges however, with his early moves including changing the engineering team, its home base and original driver Garry Jacobson with James Golding, who has been a revelation, while Chris Pither will be replaced by Tim Slade.

The team has pushed all of the difficulties aside to enter 2023 with plenty of promise, but who is the man behind the turnaround?

When the team started its journey in Janaury, Auto Action published a feature taking a deep dive into its owner, who spoke to PAUL GOVER about jumping from the drag-racing strip to the Supercars paddock.

PETER XIBERRAS IS ALMOST UNKNOWN IN SUPERCARS, BUT NOT FOR LONG

Before you ask, his name is pronounced ’Shib-a-rus’.

Supercars fans will need to know, because Peter Xiberras is the newest team owner in the category and has plans to scrape the former Team Sydney off the bottom of the pitlane and build a respectable and credible outfit to carry the name of his company, PremiAir Hire.

Xiberras already knows about the dangers of motorsport.

As a Top Fuel dragster pilot he has run through the benchmark 1000-foot strip in 3.74 seconds at 325 miles-and-hour. Just for clarity, that is 523km/h from a standing start in 304 metres.

“I love driving the Top Fueler. It’s the one time I get to relax,” Xiberras tells Auto Action.

But diving deep into Supercars, spring-boarding off the high tower, is something new even for him.

And the sharks are waiting in the deep end . . .

Peter Xiberras with his championship winning dragster.

Xiberras has already taken a pounding on social media over his driver choices, retaining Garry Jacobson but taking Chris Pither in place of former race winner Fabian Coulthard.

That could be seen as a cash grab, because Pither is likely to arrive with a bag of Coca-Cola gold, but a proper picture of Xiberras emerges during a weekend at Sydney Dragway.

His Top Fuel team is family. His wife Carmen arrives with a freshly-baked cake, one of his daughters is cleaning engine parts, Pither is schmoozing his backers and Rachelle Splatt – the first woman anywhere in the world to crack 300mph (482km/h) is watching the action while she works on a plan to join the boss in a two-car team.

There is none of the glitzy glamour of Supercars, but this is real. Xiberras packs his own parachutes and is in charge of refuelling his racecar.

But he is often sneaking behind the team tent to take care of business. The real business of PremiAir, not the business of winning at drag racing.

“I’m a control freak. I think probably the best way to describe me is hard, but – I feel – fair,” he tells Auto Action.

“I’m always doing something. There is always something to do.”

It’s a common attitude among the children of migrants, and Xiberras’ parents both arrived from Malta before he was born.

The 53-year-old Sydneysider qualified as a fitter and machinist after leaving school and has always had a rock-solid work ethic.

“I worked for a company for 10 years and all I did was work. I didn’t have any passions outside work. Then I started my own business in ’94, and the first 10 years I was just a workaholic,” he says.

Some people – including Carmen, his wife of 29 years and mother to their four children – would say he is still a workaholic.

“He’s never home. Always working. On the road,” she laughs.

But there is deep respect there, too. And acknowledgement that he is a great father and provider.

But, even before the work and the business and the success, Xiberras was already hooked on cars.

“My old man was a Ford man and I was all for XA Hardtop GTs and the XYs. Then, it was ’78 or ’79 with Brockie in the Torana, I fell in love.

“I was a typical car nut, fixated on Peter Brock and Bathurst. I’ve been a Holden man ever since.

“Then what happened was, I started to get involved with cars. I had a ’32 Ford roadster.

“Then I was trying to have a road car, a drag car and a show car, in one. It wasn’t going to work.

“A mate convinced me to buy a drag car. Just to thrash it.

“Of all things, it was a Ford Capri. The first words out of my mouth were ‘No F-ing way’. But it had a Chev in it, and I campaigned that. I started in Super Sedan. Which is grass roots racing.”

Over time, the bug bit hard and he graduated to the all-out speed machines that compete in the elite classes of drag racing. Not a modified road car, but a purebred speed machine with more power than grip and more quarter-mile speed than anything on the road.

“I always had a thing about dragsters. I love them. A dragster came up for sale, which I bought and put a blown small-bock Chev into.

“But you fool yourself that you will get to this speed, or the time, and you will be happy. But you never are.”

Well, Peter Xiberras never was.

“I went to the Winternationals and thought ‘Where has this been all my life?’. It was unbelievable. So I decided to travel and race.

“I got a truck and trailer and it belonged  to a guy who had a Top Fuel operation. I came home with the truck, trailer, racer, engines. The whole shooting match.

“I cannot remember the excuse I had for the missus. But it must have worked.”

Along the way came a professional crew chief, Tim Adams, and a Top Fuel operation based at the PremiAir facility in Brisbane.

“I’ve been doing this Top Fuel thing for seven years. I think if you’re scared of it then you’re a fool to get into it. I show it the utmost respect, because I know it can hurt me.”

But that was just the sideline as PremiAir grew and grew. It started as an optimistic start-up with hire equipment and is now, with a parallel fuel company, an East Coast giant with 140 staff and a massive inventory of equipment and a huge turnover. 

Xiberras is a smart man but also an incredible workhorse. There is nothing in his business that he cannot, or will not, do. Even if that means driving a truck overnight to ensure an interstate delivery goes off as promised.

“When you’re driving a truck from Sydney to Brisbane you’ve got 10 hours to work out problems and strategies. I find it really easy to get caught up in head office and this way I can get around the branches. The beauty of driving a truck and doing deliveries is that I can visit the branches and and talk to my managers.”

Supercars was calling to him as a way to promote his company, and a way to feed his need for speed. He already had a car collection – “my favourite is old-school, a Torana A9X or L34” – but preferred a working-class ute as his daily driver.

“It started a bit over two years ago, when Jonathan Webb started Team Sydney and went to a two-car team. He didn’t have access to a second car and I had one. It was one of those last-minute deals,” Xiberras recalls.

“It was a Triple Eight car. The one that started life as a VF, then got converted to a Team 18 car, then did the aero testing.

“Just as I rent generators and compressors, I figured I’d rent a Supercar. I figured if it paid for itself then it would be a good idea.

“We ran it for two years, in Coke colours in 2020 and PremiAir in 2021 with Garry Jacobson.”

James Golding has been a revelation as a mid-season replacement in 2022 for PremiAir Racing. Photo by Mark Horsburgh / LAT Images

But the Team Sydney experience was not what Xiberras expected, or hoped, or wanted. He could see from his Top Fuel experience how things could, and should, be better and done better.

“I found the old Team Sydney a challenge. I reckoned I could fix it.”

So Xiberras, who had been happy to stay in the background, decided to get onto the front foot and make Jono Webb a buyout offer. There was some backwards-and-forwards, but eventually the deal was done.

The first step was to send the team’s two Commodores back to Triple Eight Race Engineering – “they will be exactly the same as Shane van Gisbergen is driving” – move the team’s other assets to Brisbane, sign drivers and recruit the crew.

“To be up front, I’ve got no technical idea of what I’m doing. But I’m one of those guys who sits back and watches. I see what people do right and what they do wrong. Look at successful times and times with no success.

“I’m going to find all the smart people. And communication is the key. No-one has all the answers.”

So, what will success look like in season 2022?

“Right now we’re the last time in the pitlane. If we can move up a place of two it means we’re turning it around.

“This year is all about learning. It’s all about learning the ins and outs of a Supercars team. Next year we’ll be all the better for it.

“Especially with Gen3 coming. Supercars is obviously putting a lot of emphasis and effort into reducing costs. So a lot of teams will be more profitable with the new style of racing.

“But, at the end of the day, if I want to make money I go to work. I go to the racetrack because I enjoy it.”

Peter Xiberras has enjoyed plenty of success on board his PremiAir Racing dragster.

In the longer term, like any successful businessman, Xiberras wants to win.

“That has to be the ultimate goal. To win the championship or to win Bathurst.

“If you’re not going into this and you’re not thinking about winning then you are just wasting your time. And your money.

“I hate wastage. Money has to be spent to make it better. And I have no problem with that.”

Clearly, Peter Xiberras is a man with a plan, as well as the cash and and commitment to make it happen.

But his mantra for PremiAir Racing simple and easy to convey.

“The one thing that keeps coming back to me is this: if I’m standing in the garage and I’m the dumbest guy there, then I’ve succeeded.”

For more of the latest motorsport news pick up the latest issue of Auto Action.

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