Betty Klimenko

Betty Ann Saunders-Klimenko (born 1959) is an Australian businessperson and motorsport team owner who runs the Erebus Motorsport squad in the Supercars Championship. In 2017, she became the first female team owner to win the Bathurst 1000. Klimenko is a promoter of women in motorsport and is a global ambassador for the Australian arm of the Dare to be Different initiative.

Early life 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. and was abandoned at the adoption nursery of the former Crown Street Women's Hospital by her biological parents at seven weeks old. She has little knowledge of her biological mother, and never met her parents. She also worked as a Santa's little helper in shopping centres before becoming the first female employee in the men's jeans department at Grace Bros. Working with her husband, she participated in amateur and semi-professional forms of motor racing, She also fielded a squad of SLS Mercedes GT cars in the GT3 category. In September 2012, Klimenko purchased the Stone Brothers Racing team and V8 Supercars Championship racing license from co-owners Ross Stone and Jimmy Stone starting from the 2013 season. She renamed the team Erebus Motorsport after the Greek god of darkness, and would lease the licence for two years until 1 January 2015. Klimenko switched manufacturers Mercedes to Holden in 2016 and moved Erebus Motorsport's headquarters from Queensland to Victoria. She was the first woman team owner to win the Bathurst 1000 when Erebus Motorsport drivers David Reynolds and Luke Youlden finished first in the 2017 edition. In the 2018 championship, Klimenko's team finished fourth in the Teams' Championship.

Klimenko promotes women in motorsport. She led the nationwide Women in Auto Trades campaign opposite Auto Skills Australia and the Australian Government in 2014 visiting schools and aiming to get young girls into the motor trades industry. In March 2018, Klimenko joined the Australian arm of the Dare to be Different initiative as a global ambassador aiming to increase involvement of women at all levels of motor racing. She is an ambassador for the Blue Datto Foundation, and of the bereavement charity for children Feel the Magic. Klimenko featured on a November 2013 episode of 60 Minutes detailing her life and motor racing career.

Personal life

She is married to Daniel Klimenko with whom she has one child. Klimenko has two children from a previous marriage that lasted five years from 1981 to 1986.

Net worth the Australian Financial Review estimated Klimenko's net worth as 3.10 billion as published in the 2025 Rich List, held jointly with her half-sister, Monica Saunders-Weinberg, and their family.

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Personality Klimenko is a non-comfortist; Jane Cadzow of The Age noted "She swears, she smokes, she has a lot of tattoos." Described as "…outspoken and unapologetic…" by Autosport, she is popular in Australian motorsport for "…her very personal brand of fan engagement plays very well indeed with the fans…" according to DailySportsCar.