No Worries mate - Garry Rogers Motorsport

Garry Rogers Motorsport thrives in TCR

Garry Rogers has had a checkered motorsport career, first of all as a driver then a team owner. The former Nissan dealer from suburban Melbourne started racing in 1963 and steadily progressed through the Australian racing scene to Super Touring in 1995 where he ran Steven Richards in an Alfa Romeo 155. It 1995 the Alfa was replaced by a Honda Accord and Richards drove the wheels of it to win the Privateer’s Cup and if that was not enough the only cars ahead of him in the

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In 1996 Rogers and Richards moved to the Australian Touring Car Championship whi h would morph into the Supercars series as we now know it. Running one Holden for the first two years Rogers expanded to two cars with Jason Bargwanna in 1998. Richards success saw him head overseas leaving an empty seat for the upcoming season and 1997 FF Champion Garth Tander had caught Garry’s eye and was slotted into the driving seat. Rogers has long been considered one of Australia’s top spotters of motorsport talent and many of these drivers have to thank the GRM team for getting their feet on the first step of the professional Antipodean motorsport ladder. These include the likes of Steven Richards, Jason Bargwanna, Garth Tander, Jamie Whincup, Lee Holdsworth and the 2021 Indycar rookie and Supercar standout Scott McLaughlin. These names will be familiar as future champions and Bathurst 1000 winners. The 2021 TCR GRM teams have been put together with a perfect blend of experience in the form of Jason Bargwanna, Michael Caruso and James Moffat all who have spent with the team in other categories. The young guns, Jordan Cox, Ben

Garry congratulates Jordan Cox Bargwanna, Dylan O’Keeffe and Aaron Cameron have a wealth of experience to fall back on both with their co-drivers and the team members themselves. As seen by their move into TCR series and building the S5000 single seater cars pounced on an opportunity earlier in 2021 and Australian motor racing champion Marcos Ambrose has joined Garry Rogers Motorsport in a new role providing direction to the team’s expansive racing program. Ambrose, the Australian Touring Car

Champion of 2004-05 and a six-time race winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, will perform the role of Competition Director as the team fields several entries in three of Australia’s leading racing categories. Additionaly GRM has launched a new driver evaluation and training program, to be led by Ambrose. Intended to take place in late 2021, the GRM Combine – Driven by Marcos Ambrose will offer young and emerging drivers four days of track time at Tasmania’s Symmons Plains Raceway and Baskerville Raceway, where participants will gain seat time in GRM’s TCR, Trans Am and S5000 racecars. In addition to on-track running, participants will receive coaching from Ambrose, GRM’s TCR drivers James Moffat and Dylan O’Keeffe, and S5000 pilots James Golding and Nathan Herne. GRM’s professional drivers will also set benchmark laps for participants of the Combine. The initiative is the brainchild of two-time Supercars champion and NASCAR race winner Ambrose, who witnessed similar ‘Combine’ programs during his time competing in the USA. The Combine aims to build the skill sets of young drivers with track time in different types of racing car in a controlled environment, while benefiting from expert tuition and guidance. Participants of the Combine will receive the opportunity to drive GRM’s TCR cars as raced in the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series. Laps in

the turbocharged, four-cylinder TCR machines will be preceded by a familiarisation session in a frontwheel drive Hyundai Excel racecar. Participants will also experience rear-wheel drive, V8 power in the form of a 525-horsepower Trans Am car as raced in the National Trans Am Series.

Drivers of sufficient experience or who demonstrate the requisite capability and attitude will then step up to the high-powered Rogers AF01/ V8 S5000 open wheel racecar, with preliminary laps in a Mygale Formula Ford open wheeler. Skid pan sessions and passenger laps with GRM’s professional drivers in TCR cars will also form part of the program. A week of work experience at GRM’s race facility in Dandenong South, Victoria is an optional addendum to the Combine, allowing participants to follow in the footsteps of many GRM race drivers who have developed their motorsport and mechanical understanding by working as part of the GRM team. Ambrose explained what the Combine is all

about, “The GRM Combine is a chance for young drivers to sample a variety of high-level racecars – from front-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive V8 and open wheel – and see where they are at with the coaching and benchmarking of GRM’s pro drivers. Our intent is to assist drivers and their families with identifying that next step. “The other element we are passionate about is educating young race drivers, which ultimately creates better drivers and improves the quality of racing. With what I have learnt in my career, and with the knowledge of GRM’s current drivers, we can distil our experiences for the benefit of participants in the Combine.”