WA and NSW has increased their numbers of Rich Listers while Victoria has dropped. And she definitely doesn't care what you think of her. John and her daughter Betty's combined net worth is estimated at $2.70 billion in 2022. Tasmania has its first billionaire in 2020, with mining services magnate Dale Elphinstone increasing his wealth from $814 million to $1.08 billion. Speedcafe.com has been established to provide a daily motorsport news service to the industry and fans in Australia and internationally. Each year at Bathurst, she puts on a tutu and spends a couple of hours whooping it up in the rowdiest section of the crowd. Menu. Betty admits she had no inclination to look any deeper into the lives of her biological parents. By any standards, Betty Klimenko is an extraordinary woman. Researcher biography. Betty Klimenko said she now has an 'acre of land' after . Klimenko purchased six properties at . 'I remember standing out the front of Coles waiting for the expired meat to come out because we couldn't afford to eat. Last October, in front of 50,000 spectators at Mount Panorama and a television audience of 2.7 million, Erebus driver David Reynolds flashed first across the finish line of the nation's most famous car race, the Bathurst 1000. Klimenko's house is an exuberant blend of architectural influences and decorating styles. For Betty, religion isn't a big part of her life. When the couple eloped and got married in Las Vegas, he disowned Klimenko, who moved with her boys into Daniel's grandparents' house in the then working-class Sydney suburb of Matraville. Klimenko brought her fleet of Mercedes with her when she arrived in V8 Supercars at the start of 2013 after buying out Stone Brothers Racing and merging it under the Erebus Motorsport banner. Betty Klimenko, who is a businesswoman and the owner of the Erebus Motorsport SuperCars racing team, says she now has an 'acre of land' after snapping up the pieces of prime real estate at Vaucluse, in Sydney's eastern suburbs. . He made the driver stop, he got out of the car and walked into the chemist and he bought me a plastic hair comb," she says. "He was put in as a political prisoner. Movies. "And [John] walked in the room and they'd picked a child for him, a male. Erebus Motorsport's owner, Betty Klimenko, has been involved in Motorsport for over 12 years and now breaks the mould of your typical V8 Supercars team owner - she is the first female to be at this level either with a team or manufacturer. "And they drove from Queanbeyan up to Sydney and left me at the Women's Hospital.". "I'm a different person," she says. "I get swamped," she says, sounding chuffed. " He was 50. Klimenko is a promoter of women in motorsport and is a global ambassador for the Australian arm of the Dare to be Different initiative. [26], Klimenko is a non-comfortist;[10] Jane Cadzow of The Age noted "She swears, she smokes, she has a lot of tattoos. "And this is like age 11 or 12. ", Klimenko with Betty Klimenko. SUPERCARS team owners Betty Klimenko and Ryan Story have been appointed members of the Order of Australia (AM) as part of the annual Queen's Birthday Honours. It is as though, after seeing a species of wildlife in captivity, I have come upon it in its natural habitat. Who doesnt know theErebus Motorsport V8 team that wonthe Bathurst 1000? It wasn't until Betty was 10 years old that she found out she was adopted. The pdf files of some of the papers can be found in the Publication Archive . [21][22] She is an ambassador for the Blue Datto Foundation,[23] and of the bereavement charity for children Feel the Magic. Great article, Adrienne. "You did not breathe without him knowing what you were doing Everything was, 'Yes Daddy'.". Klimenko has 2 books and >100 journal publications (including 15 invited) which are cited >3000 times. Betty's first marriage broke down after just five years,and she soon fell in love with another man named Daniel, who at 19 was almost half her age. She tried to keep her daughter but gave little Betty up at age seven weeks and died not long after. And you picked a child and said, 'This is what this is the child I want'," Betty explains. Erebus Motorsport (formerly known as Erebus Racing) is an Australian motor racing team. "When you're adopted, you have this thing that your mother was a princess and she couldn't keep you for some reason," she says. Erebus Motorsport Team Owner Betty Klimenko opened up her heart and her garage to 6-year old Xavier Kitchin and his family at last weekend's Tasmania SuperSprint. ; ; One of the new properties cost $6.6 million and Ms Klimenko says she plans to knock it down. She laughs loudly. While the pair looked around, they found her making a laughing sound and John said, I like this one. The Google, recent Speedcafe.com story in which the now 27-year-old opened up about his switch to Tekno Autosports over the 2012/13 off-season. But I don't think they actually ever did it," she says. It is an HSV GTS W507 not only one of the fanciest Holdens money can buy (priced at about $110,000), but one of the most powerful cars ever designed and built in Australia. She's got a sense of humour." Australian businessperson and motorsport team owner, "Westfield heiress Betty Saunders-Klimenko's journey from orphanage to a life of luxury", "Betty Klimenko: the unlikely heiress revving up motor sport", "Property tsar puts Mercedes on V8s grid", "Stone Brothers Racing renamed as Klimenko buys V8 squad", "Catching up with Betty Klimenko, "Spa is Like A Big Bathurst", "Q&A: Betty Klimenko on the evolution of Erebus", "Betty Klimenko, Owner of Erbeus Motorsport", "Westfield heiress Betty Klimenko: more girl mechanics", "Supercars team owner joins Dare to be Different", "Klimenko becomes Dare To Be Different ambassador", "Erebus matriarch Betty Klimenko on 60 Minutes", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Betty_Klimenko&oldid=1118649629, Use Australian English from December 2020, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 28 October 2022, at 04:05. ". Klimenko knew from the age of about nine that she and her younger brother, Mark, who had a mild intellectual disability, were adopted. "He taught me to cook, to clean, to understand about buses," she says. ", Klimenko was born Catholic but raised Jewish. And somehow he turned aroundand he goes, 'You know you're adopted, don't you?'" ", If only more of them were female, laments Eugene Arocca, whose Confederation of Australian Motor Sport has just launched a program, Dare to be Different, designed to encourage young women to consider careers in motor racing, whether on the track or in the technical and mechanical support crews. Oct 29, 2020 - 10.47am. Daniel, a businessman with extensive experience in the real estate sector, is in a comparable circumstance. Try our daily email, The best way to get your news first, fast and free! The 2017 Bathurst winner is set to join Kelly Racing, replacing retired team co-owner Rick Kelly. Were working to restore it. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. A race meeting is three days of politics, chicanery and nastiness, then for two hours there's sport out on the track. But he adores her and she adores him. Erebus owner Betty Klimenko says losing lead driver David Reynolds is a shame while wishing the Bathurst winner well for his future. Klimenko was the illegitimate child born to a police officer who served in the Vietnam War and the prostitute and former Miss West Australia Anne Neil in Sydney in 1959. Out on the track, cars from the 16 teams in this year's competition are being put through their paces. Once you do that, they start to take you seriously.". She adds that she treasured the comb because she knew her father had chosen it himself rather than sending an underling to do his shopping. She mostly took care of herself and her younger adopted brother, who has an intellectual disability. Reynolds, her star driver, remembers his first impression of her: "I thought she looked a bit wild, a bit fun.". They (AMG) were sending everything over and no one was coming out (to Australia). But she explains thatshe had to earn everything she had. [2] Klimenko was adopted by the Hungarian-Jewish,[3] Westfield Group co-founder and Nazi concentration camp survivor John Saunders and his wife Eta. [12] This made Klimenko the first female to own a V8 Supercars squad. It seems to Bruce Newton that both Klimenko and Arocca are right: "Not only is there deep-seated misogyny in pit lane, there is no respect for the newcomer. Sign up to the Repco Supercars Championship Newsletter, We use cookies to ensure we give you the best experience on our website. Religion is very good for some people. But for now, we will be talking aboutBetty Klimenko other side. V8 SUPERCAR queen Betty Klimenko believes the fresh smell of burned rubber in the morning will inspire girls to get out of the kitchen and under a car. Story continues below. "Because death is just a part of life. Ms Klimenko bought her first double-block property in Vaucluse in 2007 and began buying up houses when her sons began to move away. "He threw himself into work even more than he already had," says Gabriel Kune, his longtime friend and author of the 1999 biography Nothing Is Impossible: The John Saunders Story. READ MORE:Who Is Nik Hirschi Husband of Supercar Blondie? Both are on the board of the family-owned Terrace Tower Group. "We're like the terrible twosome," she says. I just got one father, one mother.". So at 13 I started working as Santa's helper at the shopping centres, and I had the little red skirt and everything else. ", Klimenko got a cool welcome from some members of the Supercars fraternity. When Betty was 11, her mother Eta passed away. And then reality bites." "The rabbi said, 'Maybe you should go and see a priest, and find out where you belong,' " she tells me incredulously. "It was an incredible victory," says respected motoring journalist Bruce Newton. [11][12] She renamed the team Erebus Motorsport after the Greek god of darkness,[10][13] and would lease the licence for two years until 1 January 2015. In my mind, it was quite logical. [4] She has a younger adopted brother,[4] and was raised by nannies since Saunders worked constantly. Pic: Erebus / DJR. When asked by Speedcafe.com for a response to Klimenkos comments, Van Gisbergen explained that he did not believe the Mercedes would be competitive. Forceful in any setting, she seems to have an added sense of purpose out here. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Long years of estrangement passed, Betty gave birth to her third son, Matthew, thats when her father John reappeared. They are all kept in her garage in Vaucluse. And there were there like 20 kids in there in cots. I mean, I might shed a tear when I learn that someone dies, like, you know, Sean Connery or someone but it, it's a tear and then the tear goes. But what he saw in front of him was a Playboy bunny.. READ MORE:Gorgeous Car Vlogger Alex Hirschi aka supercarblondie Wiki Facts! Apologies for the oversight, we have amended the article now. "You've got the whole fairy tale in your head. Dec 17, 2020, 3:40 AM. The adopted heiress of the Westfield fortune has bought six properties in an elite Sydney suburb so she can keep her family close to her. 13 June 2022. Betty Klimenko, pictured at Erebus launch in 2013. And she definitely doesn't care what you think of her. Reynolds' rocky road to 300. And he was the person who was telling me, 'Well, you know, your mother was the black sheep of the family. And they said to my mother, will you keep a kosher home? Bruce Newton believes Klimenko now has the respect of most team owners: "She's toughened up and got her show performing creditably. Klimenko was famously conceived in Cell 3 at Kings Cross police station, her father the police officer who had arrested her mother, a drug-addicted prostitute. But in Klimenko's telling, some of his gifts to her were almost comically stingy, particularly compared with those bestowed on her sister. An unstinting benefactor, he spent $6 million founding the Sydney Jewish Museum, which opened in 1992, then paid another $1 million every year to support it. Klimenko is a promoter of women in motorsport and is a global ambassador for the Australian arm of the Dare to be Different initiative. Klimenko was recognized in today's Queen's Birthday celebrations and says she remembers her late father receiving the same accolade . When the cars pull briefly into the garage, mechanics swarm around them, swapping tyres and fine-tuning. [3][4] She has little knowledge of her biological mother,[2] who died when Kilmenko was aged five,[5] and never met her parents. The colourful, eccentric and undeniably loveable Saunders-Klimenko has revealed she was forced to take out a personal bank loan, understood to be about $10 million, after spending her life savings a staggering $40 million on the motor racing team that had made her one of Australia's most popular female sporting figures. "He lost a mother, brother and family on the outside. Credit:Tim Bauer, According to Supercars' corporate affairs manager, Cole Hitchcock, V8 racing is Australia's third-most popular spectator sport, trailing only AFL and rugby league on crowd sizes and TV ratings. Nebraska had the highest population of Klimenko families in 1920. and The home of Betty Klimenko (left) has a house under construction next door for her son. It is hot, it is dusty, it's noisy as hell, but Klimenko greets me with a spring in her step and a gleam of excitement in her eye. "They treated me exactly how they would treat any new owner," she insists. There he met another European immigrant, Frank Lowy, who delivered smallgoods to him. "And my father said, 'Just one second'. Like Betty, her parents John and Eta were also extraordinary people. " The revelation that she was adopted may not have fazed her, but this time she was shaken to the core. "The only reason I and Barry agreed to Darwin is that we were promised that it is a one-time thing, and everyone will go straight home after," she said on Facebook. You have got to remember this was back in the 60s, early 70s, they didnt have the medicine they have now, so there was a lot of pain involved, she was on crutches. Some of the best times of my life were in that world.. I'm very logical. Despite her father's physical absence, he instilled a work ethic that Klimenko says has stuck with her for life, making her work in his centres from the age of 13. [14] Klimenko switched manufacturers Mercedes to Holden in 2016 and moved Erbeus Motorsport's headquarters from Queensland to Victoria. Harry and Rhonda Triguboff with pet poodle Susie. Or if they're dead, I'm a queen'", she says with a laugh. Jun 13, 2022, 1:50 AM. Bungling helicopter pilot blows over stadium roof injuring eight, BBC Breakfast celebrates forty years of hilarious bloopers, Ken Bruce will be joining the Greatest Hits Radio family in April, As it happened: UK Government blocks Scotland's new gender law, Royal Family will find it 'impossible' to compromise with Sussexes, Extinction Rebellion douse the Home Office building in black paint, Motorists slowly drive down snowy hill in treacherous conditions, Harrowing moment woman begs father not to kill himself, Shamima Begum never considered turning back during journey to ISIS, Kamala opts out of kneeling with Biden for Warriors photo op. But my from knee down, I'm not.". Erebus campaigned its Mercedes-AMGs for three seasons, scoring two race wins and a best drivers championship position of 14th before switching to Holdens this year. "My father was very much a person you work for what you get. Eventually, she pulled the plug, switching to Holden in 2016. A fortunate turn of events; but as Klimenko revealed, not everything was a straightforward fairytale. ", Klimenko, 58, is among the wealthiest women in Australia, and the only one to have her own professional car racing team, Erebus Motorsport. Klimenko, 60, has gone on to become a fan favourite, establishing Erebus Motorsport as a GT team in 2011 and then diving into Supercars two years later. "It was an incredible victory," says respected motoring journalist Bruce Newton. It was definitely the right call (to leave).. She is convinced that her physical development was stunted by the drugs her mother took during pregnancy. 5/6. "And he did escape once, but he got to a river, and like all good religious Jews, he had never been taught to swim. Klimenkos Mercedes E63s were launched with much fanfare. EXTENDED INTERVIEW | Betty Klimenko 3,468 views Nov 17, 2013 15 Dislike Share Save 60 Minutes Australia 4.44M subscribers Unlikely billionaire, Betty Klimenko discussing her love of V8. [2][4] She was brought up Jewish (although never converted) but born Catholic. "When my parents adopted me, they took me to the religious synagogue [for conversion]. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. John Saunders is my father. "I turn it on and it's like, 'Yeah, this is my baby!'. 6/6. ", Eta and John Saunders at the opening of the Burwood shopping centre in the mid-1960s. The trailblazing Westfield fortune heiress . Betty Klimenko was just seven weeks old when Westfield co-founder John Saunders and his wife adopted her as their own. Betty Klimenko has just returned from Bathurst where she's picked up what her doctor calls the Bathurst Plague - a nasty cold developed from meeting too many people and yelling too loudly. Join the discussion below in the Speedcafe.com comments section, Please note: Speedcafe.com reserves the right to remove any comment that does not follow the comment policy. 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