At RX Automotive, we love to race!

Simon Harrex

Simon's racing career began in the mid 1960's racing U2 Clubmans. In the late 60's marriage and other commitments meant his racing activities were put on hold until the mid 1970's when his business began to make him enough money to go racing again. In 1976 he teamed up with Dr Ian Carness and John English to put together the first 3 car Sports Sedan works team in Australia. The cars were all race prepared Lotus Twin Cam Mk1 Escorts and wore Castrol livery. When the team split and the other drivers went to race for Bryan Burke Ford, Simon, in twist of irony, found sponsorship with a local Holden Dealer Bill White and campaigned the quick little Escort for some time.

In 1984 Simon teamed up with John Donnelly to pilot the ex Dick Johnson XD Falcon at Bathurst that year. This was a car which was most famous for its spectacular exit from the 1980 James Hardie 1000 when it hit a rock that had been dislodged by a spectator and rolled onto the track ending Dick Johnson's chance of a Bathurst win that year. The XD was later sold off to fund a Group A Rover car that Simon built to race in the 1986 Touring Car championship. Interestingly the XD Falcon is still in existence in QLD and has even been the subject of a replica build in the same livery that Donnelley/Harrex last raced it.

The Group A Rover was built by RX Automotive using a locally sourced Rover shell and filling it with TWR racing components. It competed in the 1986 James Hardie 1000 and was raced at Surfers Paradise as well. Despite it's light weight and 3.5 litre aluminium V8 the Rover was no match for the Group A cars of the era, namely the VK Commodores, Volvo 240T and Nissan Skyline's.

Following on from Touring car racing Simon soon got back into Sports Sedan's with the build of a 6 litre, 550hp VL Commodore weighing a tiny 800kg's. The Commodore wore Patrichs livery and with black paint work it was an imposing looking beast. It was blindly quick too, running 55sec times around Lakeside Raceway using technology that is now 20 years old. The performance of this car however was a contentious issue with other racers and although it was build strictly to the rules at the time, to satisfy the neigh sayers Simon converted it to a two door. The conversion involved replacing the rear quarters with units sourced from an Opel Monza, shifting the B pillar back and lengthening the front doors.

Unfortunately the now "Opel" Sports Sedan met an untimely end when it was given a shunt at Amaroo Park and required extensive repairs. It returned to Sports Sedan racing wearing a techincolor paint scheme. After only a short amount of track time it was once again involved in nasty accident that caused Simon to reconsider his race driving career. After hanging up the helmet he focused strongly on building great for others to race instead of himself.

One of the most satisfying builds Simon performed was for Danny Menneguzzo. Danny was competing in the QLD Sports Sedan series and not having much luck so Simon offered to help him out. He build Danny a BMW E30 space frame (now a speciality of RX Automotive) filled it full of quality parts and meticulous engineering and handed it over. On its first ever outing Danny smashed his personal best lap time and in the same year went on to win the QLD Sports Sedan Championship (1996). So good was the reliability and quality of the car that he retained his champion status by taking out the series in 1997 as well. The E30 is still racing to this day and is now being campaigned by Danny's son Damien.

Simon's involvement in motorsport continues through his long list of racers he builds, improves and maintains cars for. One driver in particular who is showing a lot of promise and skill is of course his son, Pierz Harrex.

Pierz Harrex

Pierz began his racing career in 2004 after attending several track days organised by the BMW Car Club Queensland of which he and Simon at long standing members. His choice of weapon was of course one of his fathers specialities, a BMW E30. Black in colour with a stroked 2.8 litre M20 and pushing out 200rwhp the little Black bimmer campaigned for several years in Improved Production Hillclimb and Sprint racing. Chasing more horsepower and quicker times the E30 was sold to fund a new car (the Blue E30) and it has passed through several hands since. It still remains competitive and has seen State championship wins among other accolades.

With the Black car gone and the Blue E30 in the build to team at RX Automotive put together a Red E30 using spare parts from the workshop so Pierz could continue racing. Running another stroked 2.8 litre M20 engine with the benefit of individual throttle bodies and a Motec management system the Red car is putting out 220rwhp is having a successful stint. In this car Pierz is currently the Australian Hill Climb Champion for Improved Production (2000cc-3000cc) and also the 2013 Queensland Champion for the same class. The Red E30 is now seeing less track time as the Blue E30 has been build and is currently in fine tuning\running in mode. The Red E30 however will be kept as a back up car to ensure Pierz racing commitments can continue uninterrupted.

The Blue BMW E30 is a striking machine and it has the performance to back up its looks. Powered by an E36 M3 3 litre S50 engine that has had extensive work it is pumping out 300rwhp and it already proving itself to be a formidable car even in its running in phase. This car will be run in sprints, hill climbs and in the Queensland Touring Car Championship. Pierz is keen to build on his skills through proper door to door racing and when asked of his future ambitions he says quite simply "Just to keep having fun".

Check out Pierz "having fun" in the video below where he achieves a Personal Best of 45.34 seconds against the record for Improved Production of 45.87 seconds. The was in the Red BMW E30 at the Mt Cotton Hill Climb in 2013.