MAN OF SPEED

We sit down for an exclusive chat with the man who saved global GT racing. He doesn't hold back, so duck for cover

- CAMERON KIRBY

STEPHANE RATEL IS flicking through the pages of MOTOR'S March issue. He pauses briefly to admire the Ferrari 296 GTB sliding on track as a wry smile spreads across his face before turning over some more pages. Another pause, and he puts the magazine down on the table and shakes his head ever so subtly.

"Ah, Glickenhaus..." he sighs, leaning back in his chair, staring down his nose with a furrowed brow at the two cars that peer back at him from the page. A gold SCG004, and its motorsport ready counterpart.

The statement is dripping with subtext yet unsaid. Ratel and Glickenhaus have a complex relationship. The former the velvet-gloved iron-fisted ruler of modern GT racing, the latter desperately trying to be allowed into the party with his selffunded creations. It doesn't take much provocation for Ratel to expand on his thoughts.

"At the time, they wanted to come to the Spa 24 Hours, but we didn't accept them," Ratel explains. "I was not very much in favour of it."

Ratel was unwilling to bend the rules to give Glickenhaus a dispensation as he felt the cars the American creates don't match the spirit of GT3. If the well-heeled independent wanted to play in Ratel's house, he needed to earn his way in like everyone else, with a proper production run of road cars that are then turned into racers - not the other way around.

Through the Stephane Ratel Organisation (SRO), the 58-yearold Frenchman is the custodian of the gargantuan GT3 category, along with its siblings GT2 and GT4. We've been given the opportunity to have an exclusive extended chat with him at Phillip Island during his recent brief visit Down Under.