2024 ITM Taupō Super400 Official Program

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Shane Howard Chief Executive Officer, Supercars

Welcome from Supercars

It is with great pleasure I welcome you to the launch of another thrilling chapter in the Repco Supercars Championship, the 2024 ITM Taupō Super400.

This year, we are thrilled to expand our horizons as we venture to the picturesque Taupō International Motorsport Park, marking the 35th unique venue to host a round of the championship. Collaborating with the New Zealand Government and Taupō District Council has been instrumental in bringing this event to fruition, and we are grateful for their support.

As we prepare to hit the track here for the first time, Taupō joins the esteemed ranks of Pukekohe and Hamilton in hosting championship Supercars racing on New Zealand’s picturesque North Island. This historic occasion underscores the global appeal of our sport, as Taupō becomes the seventh international venue to witness the

David Trewavas

Taupō District Council, Mayor

Welcome to Taupō

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Taupō District as we host the 2024 ITM Taupō Super400!

We are delighted the 2024 ITM Taupō Super400 event is taking place at the Taupō International Motorsport Park, and we really hope you enjoy your time at the track and in our beautiful piece of paradise. We love to welcome all our visitors with our true Kiwi spirit while you are all enjoying your time at this amazing event. We are geared up and raring to go!

While you are here, we really hope you get the chance to get out and about to further explore our town, recent winner of the Supreme Towns & Cities Award, and the wider Taupō District. We are proud of our community; our beautiful lake and all the lovely spots around it. Make sure to take the time to go out explore the beauty that makes this place so special. From our picturesque parks, cultural attractions and vibrant lakefront to our awesome shopping

exhilarating action of Supercars.

Our partnership with Taupō International Motorsport Park will see us tackle the challenging 3.32km International Circuit configuration over three action-packed days. From the thunderous roar of Supercars to the excitement of our support categories, there’s something for every motorsport enthusiast to enjoy.

I extend my sincerest gratitude to everyone involved in making this event possible – from the teams and drivers to the passionate fans, partners and volunteers who fuel our sport’s relentless spirit.

As we embark on this exciting new chapter at Taupō, I thank you all for joining with us this weekend in what promises to be a memorable event.

Thank you for being part of the Repco Supercars Championship, and I wish you an unforgettable experience at the 2024 ITM Taupō Super400.

and dining experiences, there is something here for everyone to enjoy.

This wonderful location, Taupō Motorsport Park is the third track in New Zealand to be owned by Tony Quinn, who took over in December 2021. The circuit, under his ownership, has seen the park flourish with events taking place almost every weekend in summer (except when horse racing is on as they can’t run on the same day!) and to be able to run the ITM Taupō Super400 really is a huge credit to Tony and his awesome team.

We would like to extend our thanks to Ngāti Tūwharetoa; in particular ngā hapū o te Hikuwaias as tangata whenua, for their support of this event.

On behalf of our community, I extend a warm welcome to you all and thank you for being part of ITM Taupō Super400! If you see me out and about make sure you say gidday! See you next year when we host Supercars for 2025!

Hon Melissa Lee Minister for Economic Development New Zealand Government

Welcome from the New Zealand Government

Nau mai, haere mai! Gidday! Welcome to New Zealand for the ITM Taupō Super400. We are so excited to welcome Supercars back to New Zealand after a year’s hiatus. New Zealand has a proud history of hosting Repco Supercars Championship events that spans more than 20 years. It’s one of the most attended events in our national sporting calendar.

The New Zealand Government is a proud supporter of the ITM Taupō Super400, which will generate significant economic and social benefits for our country and the Taupō region. To ensure New Zealanders and international visitors can continue to enjoy one of the most popular Trans-Tasman motorsport events, the Government has confirmed its support for the event through our Major Events Fund for the next three years (2024-2026).

This year, visitors and New Zealanders alike get to experience a new region of our beautiful

Sara Johnson Chief Executive Officer, ITM

Jonathon Maddren Repco New Zealand, Executive GM

Welcome from ITM

As we gear up for an exciting weekend of racing at the 2024 ITM Taupō Super400, I am thrilled to extend a warm welcome to you all.

ITM has been a loyal supporter of Supercars since 2010 and we’re privileged to help bring this world class event back home, to the heart of the North Island. As a Co-operative with over 90 independently owned stores deeply rooted in communities across NZ, we eagerly anticipate Supercars establishing their own legacy in their new home.

The inaugural Taupō event promises heart-pounding action. In heading to Taupō

Welcome from Repco

New track, fabulous location, we are incredibly proud to welcome the world-class Repco Supercars Championship back to New Zealand!

The Repco Supercars Championship is making a triumphant return our shores and we couldn’t be prouder. After the poignant farewell to Pukekohe in 2022 we’ve been engaged with the team at Supercars to ensure the best of motorsport racing would be seen by NZ fans on NZ tarmac.

Taupō will be an exciting track with challenging turns and excellent visibility for all the passionate supporters. The ITM Taupō Super400 will see Supercars, and the fantastic

country as the event takes place in Taupō for the very first time. I encourage you to make the most of your time here by enjoying all that Taupō and the surrounding areas have to offer – you won’t be disappointed!

This year’s event is extra special as it takes place just days before ANZAC Day on 25 April. New Zealand and Australia have long held a special connection which continues to flourish to this day.

Lastly, I want to wish all competitors and crew taking part in the ITM Taupō Super400 good luck, especially our New Zealand drivers, Jaxon Evans, Andre Heimgartner, Matt Payne, Richie Stanaway and Ryan Wood. New Zealand has a long and successful history with motorsport, with many New Zealand drivers accumulating great success in the Repco Supercars Championship over the years. Let’s hope this year will be no different!

International Motorsport Park for the first time, there are a lot of whispers about the technical challenges this track will throw at the drivers and their teams. We know one thing for sure – this racing will be a spectacle.

To the racing teams we wish you the best of luck this weekend. A special shout-out to our five Kiwi drivers – we’ll of course be cheering for you!

To the fans, fasten your seatbelts. Over the next three days, expect something truly special.

support categories, push the limits, and we know they’ll thrill.

Our Repco crew will be in the thick of the action adding to the fun and excitement with giveaways, driver appearances and exclusive experiences to give away. Make sure you stop by the Repco Garage to say hello and grab your chance to win!

We can’t wait to celebrate with motorsport fans on track and around New Zealand. The 19th-21st April at Taupō International Motorsport Park will be an unmissable event.

Enjoy the races everyone and thank you for your continued love for the Repco Supercars Championship.

Ngā mihi.

Friday 19 April

Saturday 20 April

Sunday 21 April

The opening two rounds of the season have set the stage for a thrilling battle at Taupō Motorsport Park, as CONNOR O’BRIEN reports.

The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship has roared to life ahead of a highly anticipated return to New Zealand shores.

The category is coming off arguably the best weekend of racing in the Gen3 era to date, having put on an electrifying show across a quartet of Albert Park races on the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix undercard last month.

In fact, one could argue it was the most action-packed race meeting since

Supercars’ Pukekohe swansong 19 months ago, ever since when Kiwi fans have been craving more. Sure, Chevrolet drivers ultimately took a clean sweep at Albert Park, but Ford’s fastest were firmly in the hunt and – even amid Blue Oval friendly fire – Triple Eight did not have it all its own way.

The most recent race winner coming into the inaugural ITM Taupō Super400 is Nick Percat of Matt Stone Racing. Percat has spectacularly revived his career with a

move to perennial underdogs MSR after an unceremonious exit from Walkinshaw Andretti United – and there’s no been no love lost with the Clayton powerhouse. Percat is back. He is one of just three drivers to finish every race inside the top 10 so far this year, and will now be eyeing win number six after snapping a four-year victory drought. His teammate Cameron Hill enters Taupō fired up too after losing a top eight result when he was punted off on the final lap of the Melbourne SuperSprint.

Team 18 also heads across the Tasman with form on its side, with Adrian Burgess and his band of recruits making rapid inroads.

Qualifying, unusually, has been mostly a struggle for Mark Winterbottom this year but he’s not lacking race pace, so the 200km Taupō encounters could well play into his hands. David Reynolds, meanwhile, is fifth in the championship and hunting a return to the podium.

Erebus Motorsport isn’t far off either, Jack Le Brocq and Todd Hazelwood entrenching themselves as top 10 regulars,

Left: Percat leads Mosert and the rest at Albert Park. Main: Triple Eight has been the team to beat across the early rounds of the year.

besides coming off second-best in some Sunday skirmishes at Albert Park. Podium contention in particular looks a mere matter of time for Le Brocq as he gets up to speed with the Erebus way.

Now for Ford.

With aerodynamics sorted over the off-season and gains made on engines too, Mustang competitors feel they truly have a fair fight.

Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters was one of three Ford victory contenders at Albert Park, along with Matt Payne (Grove Racing) and Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw Andretti United). The problem? They took each other out in the two races where they gave the Blue Oval a top-three qualifying lockout, much to the frustration of Ford fans. Can they make amends in New Zealand?

“PERCAT IS BACK … AND WILL NOW BE EYEING WIN NUMBER SIX AFTER SNAPPING A FOUR-YEAR VICTORY DROUGHT.”

Above: Percat leads home Brown and Feeney to win at Albert Park. Right: The result marked Percat’s first win since July of 2020 and came in just his second weekend with Matt Stone Racing.

Armed with a brand-new chassis, Waters seemed back to his usual feisty self at Albert Park – although his Monster Mustang has needed some further repairs after racing wounded in the aftermath of his dramatic Payne clash.

Tickford teammate Thomas Randle collected another top four finish at Albert Park in what was otherwise a scruffy weekend on the track, not helped by gearshift woes.

Mostert also found himself in his

fair share of tangles but as was the case last year, is Ford’s leading driver in the championship. That first Ford win for WAU continues to be elusive, though.

The spotlight arguably will be shining brightest of all on Grove Racing and its two Kiwi stars.

The Groves have picked up where they left off last year with two speedy Penrite Mustangs, and Payne just keeps on proving that he is the real deal. With his blistering qualifying speed and improving

Above: Winterbottom, Jack Le Brocq, Will Davison and Percat tackle Albert Park’s second turn. Main: Veterans Winterbottom and Reynolds join forces at Team 18.

racecraft, he seems as good a bet as any to finally put a Mustang on top in 2024 –especially on home soil.

Don’t discount Richie Stanaway either, who was excellent in the opening round at Bathurst but a bit more circumspect at Albert Park, caught in the snakes-andladders game that came with the vicious midfield scraps there.

Stanaway has grown a leg in previous Supercars visits to New Zealand, making the Top 10 Shootout at Pukekohe in 2018 and recording a double top 10 finish there the following year in what were otherwise torrid campaigns.

But for all of the promise elsewhere, the undoubted cars to beat are still the Red Bull Ampol Camaros of Will Brown and Broc Feeney. Even without Shane van Gisbergen, the Triple Eight juggernaut has pressed on, with Brown, Feeney and their engineers and mechanics having barely put a foot wrong.

Above: Waters’ new Monster Mustang took a beating on debut at Albert Park. Below: Waters and Payne leading the Triple Eight pair before disaster struck.

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Such has been their superiority that they already hold a 448-point lead in the teams’ championship after just two rounds. In that time, they’ve scored 1133 of a possible 1172 points. Triple Eight is back to raising the bar and challenging rivals to catch them.

While SVG took out the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy when it was last on offer in 2022, the coveted honour had been set to go the way of Dick Johnson Racing’s Will Davison until heartbreak struck in the form of a bungled pitstop.

“SUCH HAS BEEN TRIPLE EIGHT’S SUPERIORITY THAT THEY ALREADY HOLD A 448-POINT LEAD IN THE TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER JUST TWO ROUNDS.”

Davison has been using every ounce of his experience to grind out some results for a struggling DJR outfit, which has slumped to 10th in the teams’ championship with

Above: Former teammates and long-time sparring partners Mostert and Waters are primed for big seasons. Below left: Feeney (C), Brown (L) and Payne (R) on the Albert Park podium. Below right: Payne celebrates his maiden Supercars pole position with former teammate Reynolds.

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“DICK JOHNSON RACING WILL BE MOVING HEAVEN AND EARTH IN THE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS.”

It can’t go on like this for the proud Ford outfit, so they’ll be moving heaven and earth in the search for answers in the lead-up to Taupō.

Along with Payne and Stanaway, others looking to cash in on a home ground advantage will be Brad Jones Racing’s Andre Heimgartner and Jaxon Evans, and WAU’s Ryan Wood.

BJR has been plagued by braking issues that have rendered its Camaro quartet uncompetitive, leaving Heimgartner a long shot to be starring at the front as he did last time Supercars raced in NZ.

Beyond that, it’s the two teams still chasing their first Repco Supercars Championship podium results.

PremiAir Racing and its drivers James Golding and Tim Slade have shown glimpses of being in the mix when they put it all together, while the Blanchard Racing Team is still building into its two-car structure with veteran James Courtney and rookie Aaron Love.

If the action last month at Albert Park and last time in NZ is anything to go by, a tantalising Taupō debut for Supercars awaits. ■

Above: Brown and Feeney have proven evenly matched across the opening races of the 2024 season.

Below: De Pasquale and DJR have endured a tough start.

Ford star Cam Waters locked in and ready for battle at Albert Park. After a shocking opening round at Bathurst, Waters debuted a new car in Melbourne and returned to the front of the field, but a clash with Matt Payne means he’s still chasing his first win of 2024.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Mark Horsburgh, EDGE Photographics

The new chapter of Supercars racing in New Zealand beginning at Taupō coincides with a changing of the guard for Kiwi talent in the category, writes

STEFAN BARTHOLOMAEUS.

New Zealand needs a new Supercars hero. The era of Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen that netted six drivers’ championships in eight years from 2016 is officially over. Both are now in the United States, McLaughlin having moved to IndyCar in 2021 and van Gisbergen this year embarking on a fresh start in NASCAR.

While the all-conquering duo are rare talents not easily replaced, the good news for Kiwi fans is there are five New Zealanders on the 2024 Supercars grid all raring to give their Aussie rivals plenty to think about, each with a claim to being a future champion.

Their full racing resumes and statistics are covered in the driver biography pages of this program. Here, we’ve enlisted Kiwi Supercars legend Greg Murphy to help paint the picture of how each Kiwi is placed heading to Taupō and provide insight into the personalities of this diverse group.

ANDRE HEIMGARTNER

Heimgartner, 28, isn’t the oldest of the Kiwi contingent, but he’s very much the veteran of the bunch as far as Supercars experience goes.

It’s approaching 10 years since this shy kid from Auckland embarked on his debut season in the category. The rollercoaster ride since included the low of a year without a full-time drive in 2017 and the high of what remains his sole career win from 250 races, achieved in 2021.

Now settled in Perth with fianceé Jemma Boskovich and baby daughter Summer, Heimgartner is a polished performer in the prime of his professional career. He is on the verge of true stardom, but risks being overtaken by the new wave of Kiwi talent should Brad Jones Racing fail to fire. Murph says: “Andre is one of the genuine good guys. He’s got a great sense of humour, a great personality and is just living life at the moment. He is very easy to be around and always energetic and willing to get involved and

“I really rate his ability and I don’t think we’ve seen the best of what he’s capable of. He deserves to have more success. He’s proven he’s committed to the sport, committed to Supercars and, having seen what success means to him, it’d be great for the sport if he gets more of it.

“I always hope that BJR are going to step up and find that next level. If the opening rounds of 2024 are anything to go by it doesn’t look like they have at this point. Things can change quickly in Supercars, but I’m not convinced he’s got all the tools consistently at his disposal that he needs to be able to step it up and compete for podiums on a regular basis.”

MATT PAYNE

At just 21 years old, Payne is a young man in a hurry.

Earmarked for stardom by Grove Racing while competing in Carrera Cup Australia in 2021, the Pukekohe-raised driver was thrust into Supercars’ Super2 Series mid-season and, after an aborted mission to move him into the Supercars Championship in 2022, made the big step up last year.

Payne made good on his potential by charging to a sensational victory in the season-ending Adelaide 500. With the Grove team also hitting its straps, the sky is the limit for this lanky giant.

Murph says: “Matty is a star. Groves recognised his potential quite some time ago and he’s now paid them back by providing some great results which culminated with that win in Adelaide last year, which was a phenomenal drive.

“He’s definitely showcased his skillset and why he deserves to be in a top team. They’ve just got to continue to push the envelope and do what the team does best, utilising the exceptional experience and resources they’ve got to keep building.

“Matt has got the personality to be a star off the track as well. He’s quirky, he’s a very funny young man. He brings a little bit of a David Reynolds-kind of thing in that he’s not mainstream, he’s unique, interesting and fun, which is fantastic and an amazing asset for the sport. Really showcasing and nurturing that will allow Matt to create his own space in the game.”

RICHIE STANAWAY

Enigmatic, introverted and highly talented, Tauranga-raised Stanaway has already written one of the greatest redemption stories in the history of the Supercars Championship.

Cut adrift from the category following disastrous full-time seasons in struggling teams in 2018 and ‘19, the driver who

PAYNE & HEIMGARTNER

MATT PAYNE

“I’VE SPENT A LOT OF TIME WITH RICHIE WHERE HE’S JUST SO ENGAGING AND EASY TO TALK TO AND GREAT COMPANY.”

once seemed destined for Formula 1 was a relative recluse in Auckland until being dragged back to Bathurst in 2022 to share an Erebus-run wildcard with Murphy.

A year later Stanaway lifted the Peter Brock Trophy as co-driver to van Gisbergen at Triple Eight and now he’s back as a Supercars full-timer. He’s teamed with Payne at the ambitious Grove Racing, which unlike Triple Eight and Erebus, proved willing to take a gamble on this born-again 32-year-old.

Murph says: “Richie is a quirky character, but in a very different way to Matt. I’ve spent a lot of time with Richie where he’s just so engaging and easy to talk to and great company. He doesn’t usually come across like that when he’s on camera, there’s a different persona in front of the media.

“He’s very intense when it comes to his desire to be successful. He knows what he’s capable of and I think everyone else now knows that too. He’s just got a special, innate skill behind the wheel of a racing car which I love watching and seeing. I’m just so thankful that (wildcard sponsor)

Pete Adderton, and crazy as it was, suggested we did what we did to get him back in a race car.

“Richie has an immense amount of knowledge and a really brilliant understanding of the dynamics of a race car and particularly a Supercar, so I hope the team utilise him to the absolute maximum with his knowledge and understanding and use him as a tool

of information as well as the amazing driver that he is. The Groves have all the ingredients to have a lot of success.”

RYAN WOOD

Wood, 20, entered his rookie Supercars season as the very definition of a raw talent. The Wellington native shot to prominence in Australia’s Porsche Sprint Challenge class in 2022 and gave up a

RICHIE STANAWAY

Porsche New Zealand Scholarship for the following season’s Carrera Cup Australia in order to go Supercars racing via the Super2 Series with Walkinshaw Andretti United.

It took just two rounds for Wood to claim his first victory and little more for WAU to decide he would graduate to the main game in 2024. His debut at Bathurst in February showed both his potential and his inexperience as two fine qualifying

efforts were followed by first-lap incidents. Murph says: “I’m a big supporter of Ryan. It was noticeable quite a few years ago that he has a special skill and it’s been really enjoyable to watch it evolve. To turn up this year at the first round at Bathurst, without having done the enduros or anything, and qualify so well really showed what he’s capable of and why WAU has shown such belief in him.

“Ryan has always had a cheeky side to him and a real confident, kind of cocky nature, which is awesome, we need a bit of that going around. I think tying that together with some good results, which I don’t believe are too far away, then he’ll have the right to really showcase that personality.

“I hope he doesn’t get pulled back too much, because we need another great personality to follow and enjoy, just like his teammate Chaz Mostert. They’ve got great assets there at WAU, in that respect, and now it’s a matter of providing them both with the tools that they can maximise.”

JAXON EVANS

Another fresh-face on the full-time Supercars grid in 2024, Evans’ persona and career-to-date couldn’t be much more different from that of countryman Wood.

Born on the Fiji island of Rotuma before being adopted and raised in Levin, Evans has spent the last 10 seasons racing Porsches. He was based in Europe for the most recent five of those years, driving in series including the F1-supporting Supercup and the World Endurance Championship.

RYAN WOOD

Among New Zealand’s five Supercars drivers is a shared excitement over performing in front of friends, family and supporters at the ITM Taupō Super400.

Heimgartner was the only one of the five on the grid for the most recent Kiwi event, Pukekohe’s last hurrah in September of 2022. On that occasion he scored two podium finishes without a win and finished third in the Jason Richards Trophy standings. He’d love nothing more than to deliver the trophy – named after a former driver of the #8 entry he now steers – back to Brad Jones Racing.

“It’s going to be something cool for New Zealand motorsport,” says Heimgartner of Supercars coming to Taupō. “Obviously we’ve been based at Pukekohe or just down the road at Hamilton for so long, that to actually go somewhere totally different and for people to experience what New Zealand is really about and everything about that region, it’s really exciting for myself as a Kiwi.”

Stanaway has also experienced the roar of a Kiwi Supercars crowd before, having been part of a five-strong local showing in the Sunday Top 10 Shootout back in 2018. Promotion for the Taupō event has included Stanaway making a special trek with the

Peter Brock Trophy to Mount Maunganui, where locally-based family joined a media call in order to catch up with the now in-demand driver.

“It’s going to be the best event of the year for me, I’m really looking forward to that the most,” he says. “It’s always special for us to come and race in New Zealand and have all of that home support, it makes me a little envious of the Australian drivers that get to do that all the time. We really have to cherish that one weekend and I think Taupō is a great place for us to go and race.”

Teammate Payne also wants to put on a show in NZ, having missed out on the opportunity to race at home in his rookie season following the closure of his home track, Pukekohe.

“I’ve had so many messages from people saying that they’re going to come to the race, I just want to show everyone what we do in Australia, how cool it is, and bring the show to Taupō,” he says. “The last round we had at Pukekohe showed that the fanbase here in New Zealand is still massive and Supercars needs a round in New Zealand. It’s really cool for us Kiwis to come home and race.”

Perhaps looking forward to Taupõ most of all is Evans, for whom racing in his homeland is one of the most attractive

elements of swapping an international career for the Supercars scene.

“Being based overseas for the last five years has been exciting, I’ve been to some of the coolest tracks in the world, but to be a bit closer to home, friends and family, is super-exciting,” he says.

“I’ve always been watching (Supercars events) from afar. It’s quite difficult with the timezone differences and things like that but I’m always seeing how hyped-up and how big the events are. The crowd really gets behind it and I’m excited to be part of that show and have some home support.”

The five Kiwis also have varying experiences of the Taupō venue. On one end is Heimgartner, who has previously secured NZ Formula Ford and V8 Touring Car Series titles at the venue, and the other is Wood, who is chasing a form of redemption.

“I’ve done one event there, the last round of the Toyota 86 Championship I competed in was at Taupō, unfortunately at Turn 1 I blew a left-front tyre and lost the championship because of it,” he says. “So, I have some different memories, but it’s a really cool track, I really enjoyed it and last time we were here we were super-fast. Fingers crossed we can be the same in the Supercar.”

Above: Heimgartner and Stanaway have competed in Supercars rounds in NZ previously, the rest are rookies.

“HE’S VERY GOOD TECHNICALLY, AND HE’S CLEARLY A BRILLIANT RACE CAR DRIVER AS WELL.”

Strong outings as a co-driver in the #4 Brad Jones Racing entry in 2022 and ’23 convinced the team that the 27-year-old has what it takes to carve a full-time career in Supercars.

Murph says: “I was stoked when I heard that Jaxon was going to be a full-time Supercars driver. He’s much quieter than a guy like Ryan, he’s come through and spent a lot of time now with some big teams and with the Porsche methodology, so he brings a very professional aspect.

“Jaxon doesn’t have much Supercars experience, but I think there are a lot of things that he can probably help BJR with from his experience. He’s very good technically, and he’s clearly a brilliant race car driver as well.

“I’m excited to see how he evolves and grabs this opportunity. I think he’s a great asset also for Andre to align with and utilise as well. It’s definitely bolstered BJR’s ranks as far as skillsets, and maybe that will mean they accelerate and make some gains, which would be fantastic.” ■

Above: Evans has joined Brad Jones Racing for each of the team’s past two endurance racing campaigns. Main: Evans made his solo-driver Supercars debut at the Bathurst 500 in February.

JAXON EVANS

2024 ITM TAUPO SUPER400

2

RYAN WOOD

Mobil 1TM Truck Assist Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 20

FROM Wellington, NZ

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @ryanwoodracing

INSTAGRAM @ryanwood40_

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2024

ROUNDS 2

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 10th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 11th

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2024

ROUNDS N/A

RACES N/A

BEST FINISH N/A

PODIUMS N/A

BEST QUAL N/A

2023 DUNLOP SERIES STATS

RACES 12

WINS 5

PODIUMS 3

POLES 4

CHAMP FINISH 3

Ryan Wood completed a rapid rise to the Repco Supercars Championship grid in 2024 by taking over the marquee #2 entry at Walkinshaw Andretti United.

The 20-year-old New Zealander was one of the standout stars of last year’s Dunlop Super2 Series despite it being his first season in a Supercar.

Driving for WAU, which returned to the Supercars’ second tier for the first time in over a decade, Wood took a season-high five race wins and four pole positions. The efforts allowed him to claim the Super2 Pole Award in his first - and, as it proved, only - campaign.

However, it was his performance in a mid-year test day at Winton aboard one of WAU’s Gen3 Ford Mustangs that sealed his promotion to the team’s ‘main game’ squad for 2024.

The deal validated a bold decision made at the end of 2022, when Wood had two clear options for his career going forward.

At that point, he’d just completed an impressive maiden season of racing in Australia in Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge driving for Porsche New Zealand and Earl Bamber Motorsport.

Wood claimed four out of six round wins and a sweep of all six pole positions on the way to a narrow second-placing behind Thomas Sargent in the Pro Class standings.

The result guaranteed graduation to Porsche Carrera Cup Australia for 2023 via the Team Porsche New Zealand scholarship.

On the other hand, he was also presented with the opportunity to do Super2 with WAU off the back of starring in a mid-November Evaluation Day test aboard one of the team’s Gen2 Holden Commodores ZBs.

History shows that Wood knocked back the Porsche opportunity and chose to move directly onto the Supercars ladder with WAU in order to pursue a career in the ‘main game’, a gamble that paid dividends in less than 12 months.

A multiple karting champion in his homeland, Wood earnt the Team Porsche NZ scholarship after impressing in his first two seasons of car racing.

Graduating from karting into the country’s Toyota 86 racing series for 2020, Wood finished 10th in his first campaign, then came agonisingly close to winning the title in his second.

He won six out of 15 races and claimed six pole positions, but a puncture in the final race of the season led him to finish third in the 2021 standings.

He then raced a Porsche 991 Cup Car in the 2021/22 South Island Endurance Series, taking victory in the series without losing a single race.

3

AARON LOVE

CoolDrive Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 22

FROM Perth, WA

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @AaronLove

INSTAGRAM @aaronlove78

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2023

ROUNDS 4

RACES 8

BEST FINISH 12th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 16th

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2024

ROUNDS N/A

RACES N/A

BEST FINISH N/A

PODIUMS N/A

BEST QUAL N/A

2023 DUNLOP SERIES STATS

RACES 11

WINS 1

PODIUMS 1

BEST QUAL 2nd

CHAMP FINISH 9th

Aaron Love is one of two Dunlop Super2 Series racers that has graduated to the Repco Supercars championship in 2024.

The son of Western Australian racer Ian and the younger sibling of fellow young gun Jordan, Love started karting at six years old and made his circuit racing debut six years later in Wanneroo’s Formula 1000 class.

Love then moved into Formula 4 in 2017 and claimed third place in the 2018 championship with Team BRM before following his brother onto the Porsche Motorsport ladder.

He joined Sonic Motor Racing Services for the 2019 Porsche Michelin GT3 Cup Challenge season, where he won six races but narrowly missed out on the title.

He became the youngest driver in Carrera Cup history when, at age 17, he made his debut at the 2019 season-ending Gold Coast round as a dress rehearsal for what was supposed to be a full-season tilt in 2020.

However, the following two seasons were both impacted by the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Love claimed his maiden top-three race finish in the opening round of 2020 at Adelaide only for the season to suddenly end midway through the Albert Park round, while he finished fifth overall in the five-round 2021 season.

Love spent the 2022 season primarily in Europe to race in France’s Carrera Cup series. Driving for longtime Porsche squad Alméras Frères, he finished fifth in the final standings with a fourth-place finish his best race result of the season, coming at former French Grand Prix venue Magny-Cours.

The Alméras squad also fielded him in a pair of cameo appearances in Porsche Supercup, racing on the Formula 1 support card at Paul Ricard and Silverstone.

Closer to home, he did just six of the eight Carrera Cup Australia rounds as he focused on his French campaign but still won the Enduro Cup and finished within a few points of nabbing the overall title after taking 12 wins in just 18 race starts.

Last year marked a full-time return to Australian shores for Love, whose season in Europe prompted him to focus his energies on trying to climb the Supercars ladder.

He linked up with Blanchard Racing Team, which branched into the Super2 Series for the first season that Gen2-era machinery was eligible. Love proved fast aboard BRT’s Petronas-backed Ford Mustang, and claimed his first race win in the category at Mount Panorama – a victory that was also the first in any category for BRT.

Love also made his ‘main game’ debut with BRT in a wildcard entry at last year’s endurance races aboard the same Gen3 Mustang he is steering in 2024.

4

CAMERON HILL

Matt Stone Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 27

FROM Canberra, ACT

LIVES Canberra, ACT

FACEBOOK @cameronhill11

INSTAGRAM @cameron_hill4

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2022

ROUNDS 15

RACES 35

BEST FINISH 5th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 4th

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2024

ROUNDS N/A

RACES N/A

BEST FINISH N/A

PODIUMS N/A

BEST QUAL N/A

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 5th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 4th

CHAMP POS 19th

Cameron Hill embarked on his second Repco Supercars Championship season in 2024, remaining with Gold Coastbased outfit Matt Stone Racing.

Hailing from Canberra, Hill won a host of state and national titles in karting before graduating to Formula Ford in 2014, where he romped to the Australian title a year later.

He continued his strong form into the Toyota 86 Racing Series, winning more races than any other driver in the class across 2016 and 2017 while posting a pair of top-three championship finishes.

His success led to an opportunity in Carrera Cup. In 2018, Hill was one of four promising young drivers recruited to Porsche’s Michelin Junior program.

After finishing ninth in the standings in his rookie season, Hill claimed his maiden pole position and race wins at Hidden Valley in 2019 on his way to sixth in the title, and took his maiden round win at the second and final event of the category’s COVID-impacted 2020 season.

Hill was peerless on his way to the Carrera Cup title in 2021, finishing in the top three in 11 of the 13 races held – including a streak of six straight race wins.

His rise through Australian motorsport, from junior open-wheel racing to Carrera Cup, came in cars entered and prepared by his own family-run team. However, for his step up to Super2 in 2022, Hill landed a plum seat driving for reigning champions Triple Eight Race Engineering.

Hill impressed in his first season in a Supercar. Although his more experienced teammate Declan Fraser took out the title, Hill matched him six-all across the year’s qualifying sessions and stood on the podium twice.

A rough Sandown round, where he was spun early in the first race then boxed around in the mid-field shuffles during the second, plus a crash at Adelaide’s infamous Turn 8 left him fifth in the final points standings.

Hill also made his ‘main game’ debut in that year’s Repco Bathurst 1000 with PremiAir Racing, losing a potential top 10 finish with a late power steering problem.

He’d already tasted Mount Panorama success earlier in the year, winning the Bathurst 6 Hour production car race with Tom Sargeant in a BMW that started from the tail the grid, sealing the win with an electric late-race pass over Skyline on Supercars rival Tim Slade.

He had a steady rookie Supercars campaign last year with flashes of speed, most notably at the Repco Bathurst 1000 where he outqualified race-winning teammate Jack Le Brocq, although he ended up starting from pit lane due to a clutch problem that persisted throughout the race.

6

CAM WATERS

Tickford Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 29

FROM Mildura, VIC

LIVEs Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @camwaters94

INSTAGRAM @cam_waters

SUPERCARS

Cam Waters continues his pursuit of a maiden Repco Supercars Championship with Tickford Racing in 2024.

Waters began his racing career in go-karts, collecting multiple national and state titles before graduating to Formula Vee in 2009. In 2010 he was the Australian Formula Ford Championship’s rookie of the year before returning the following year to win the series outright.

He also made headlines in 2011 by taking out the Shannons Supercar Showdown TV series, earning a drive alongside show host Grant Denyer in the Bathurst 1000 where he became the youngest driver to compete in the famous race. Later in the year he made his Super2 Series debut in a Kelly Racing-run Commodore and continued with the team into 2012, competing under the Dreamtime Racing banner, and returned to Bathurst to share a car with 2012 Shannons Supercar Showdown series winner Jesse Dixon.

NEW

He spent the next few years learning his craft in Super2, firstly with Minda Motorsport in 2013 before moving to Ford Performance Racing in 2014, romping to the 2015 title with four round wins, four poles and 10 race wins. Waters filled in for an injured Chaz Mostert in late 2015 in the #6 Pepsi Max Crew Falcon before a full-time step up to the ‘main game’ in 2016.

He claimed his first championship race win in 2017 alongside Richie Stanaway at the Sandown 500 on his way to eighth in the final standings, but he slumped to 16th during Tickford’s difficult 2018 campaign.

However, the departure of Mostert for 2020 paved the way for a coming-of-age campaign for Waters as Tickford team leader. He scored his first single-driver race win at The Bend and then turned on a sublime performance at Bathurst, taking pole position and pressuring Shane van Gisbergen all the way to the flag to finish second in the race and the championship.

Hobbled in 2021 by Tickford’s struggles at Sydney Motorsport Park’s four rounds, Waters returned to form in 2022 and was often the biggest thorn in van Gisbergen’s side on his way to second in the championship.

Waters was awarded the first race victory of the Gen3 era in Newcastle following Triple Eight’s double-disqualification from the season-opener, giving him the championship lead for the first time.

However, the balance of the season was a struggle amid the Ford Mustang’s wider parity issues, although a potential win at Hidden Valley went begging when his car caught fire while leading.

Late-season parity changes allowed Waters to end the year with a bang, taking wins at the Gold Coast and Adelaide.

7

JAMES COURTNEY

Snowy River Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 43

FROM Penrith, NSW

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @JamesCourtneyRacing

INSTAGRAM @jcourtney

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2005

ROUNDS 247

RACES 560

WINS 15

PODIUMS 65

POLES 10

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2006

ROUNDS 15

RACES 41

BEST FINISH 2nd

PODIUMS 4

POLES 1

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 8th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 11th

CHAMP POS 18th

Former Supercars Champion James Courtney and backer Snowy River Caravans switched teams for 2024, from the downsizing Tickford Racing to the expanding Blanchard Racing Team.

Courtney’s famed ‘Frank the Tank’ victory celebration hasn’t been sighted since 2016, a drought he is looking to end this year.

His list of achievements before joining Supercars full-time in 2006 is impressive, with two world karting championships, a Formula Ford title and Formula 3 race wins in Britain. Those feats landed him a Formula 1 testing role with Jaguar until a high-speed crash at Monza in 2002 changed the course of his career. Courtney moved to Japan to win the 2003 Japanese Formula 3 title and then shifted to Super GT. His versatility caught the attention of the then-Holden Racing Team, which signed him as an endurance driver alongside veteran Jim Richards in 2005.

Stone Brothers Racing signed Courtney to replace the NASCAR-bound Marcos Ambrose for 2006 and he finished on the podium at Bathurst for three straight years, taking his maiden Supercars race win at Queensland Raceway in 2008.

Courtney then moved to Dick Johnson Racing, winning a pair of races in 2009 then delivering five more in 2010 on the way to an underdog championship victory.

Courtney took the reigning champion’s #1 plate across to the Holden Racing Team in 2011 but results were sporadic, with seven race wins coming from his nine seasons with the team.

He rounded out his time with the squad in a strong fashion, a third-place finish in the Bathurst 1000 headlining a run of top 10 finishes to end 2019.

He began the 2020 season with Team SYDNEY but they parted ways after just one round, and teamed with backer Boost Mobile to pounce on an opportunity at Tickford Racing when 23Red Racing closed its doors. Courtney showed flashes of the speed that won him a Supercars title 10 years earlier with a podium result at Hidden Valley in Darwin and a further three fourth-place finishes.

Courtney continued his streak of podium appearances through 2021, 2022 and into the Gen3 era in 2023, although his Wanneroo podium proved his only trip to the dais for a season in which Ford’s parity troubles and a pair of non-starts through accident damage restricted him to 17th in the championship standings, and left Tickford at the end of the season as it cut back from four cars to two.

He has brought a wealth of experience to BRT as it hopes to progress up the grid as a now two-car squad.

8

ANDRE HEIMGARTNER

R&J Batteries Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 28

FROM Auckland, NZ

LIVES Perth, WA

FACEBOOK @AHRacing

INSTAGRAM @andreheimgartner

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2014

ROUNDS 110

RACES 250

WINS 1

PODIUMS 15

POLES 3

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2015

ROUNDS 5

RACES 14

BEST FINISH 2nd

PODIUMS 2

BEST QUAL 5th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 9th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 13th

CHAMP POS 17th

In his third season now with Brad Jones Racing, Andre Heimgartner has cemented his reputation as one of the new generation of stars of the Repco Supercars Championship.

Heimgartner’s early career progressed through Formula Ford, Porsche Carrera Cup Australia and the Dunlop Super2 Series. His Supercars Championship debut came as a wildcard with Super Black Racing in an FPR-prepared Falcon in the 2014 Bathurst 1000 ahead of a full-time drive in 2015.

The Kiwi showed flashes of speed aboard the Super Black Falcon but was not given the opportunity to complete the season and shifted to Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport in 2016.

He then missed out on a full-time seat in 2017 and, without so much as a co-drive, appeared lost to Supercars before a call-up to replace an injured Ash Walsh at BJR on the Friday of the Bathurst 1000.

Heimgartner continued with the team on the Gold Coast where a stirring drive in wet conditions helped net a podium alongside Tim Slade, a result that caught the attention of Kelly Racing.

The then-Nissan squad signed him to a full-time deal in 2018 and retained the Kiwi through the 2019 season - its last fielding Nissan Altimas - and into 2020, when it scaled back to two cars and switched its allegiance to Ford.

He came close to breaking through for his first win during that COVID-impacted season, adding two second place finishes in Kelly Racing’s first season running Mustangs to the podium finish he’d achieved with the Altima in 2019 at Phillip Island.

After edging teammate Rick Kelly in the standings in 2019, Heimgartner was clearly the team leader in 2020 – no mean feat against the 2006 Supercars Champion and two-time Bathurst 1000 winner.

Heimgartner also matched well against David Reynolds in 2021; his breakthrough victory at The Bend was one of 11 top-10 finishes that put him clear of his teammate in the final points standings, despite the now-Kelly Grove Racing Mustangs’ form varying sharply from circuit to circuit.

He returned to BJR on a full-time basis in 2022 and settled in quickly as team leader he was its fastest qualifier 27 times, and posted four podiums amid 21 top-10 finishes that delivered him his first finish inside the championship top 10.

Heimgartner continued to lead the Albury squad into the Gen3 era last year. While another race victory proved slightly out of reach, he took pole position for the night race at Sydney Motorsport Park and six podium finishes on the way to a career-best seventh in points.

9

JACK LE BROCQ

Erebus Motorsport

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 31

FROM Melbourne, VIC

LIVES Brisbane, QLD

FACEBOOK @JackLeBrocq.com.au

INSTAGRAM @jack_lebrocq

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2015

ROUNDS 92

RACES 204

WINS 2

PODIUMS 3

POLES 1

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2018

ROUNDS 3

RACES 7

BEST FINISH 21st

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 12th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 5th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 5th

CHAMP POS 12th

Jack Le Brocq reunited with Erebus Motorsport for 2024 in a move that saw him join the reigning Repco Supercars Championship-winning team.

Coming up through the ranks of karts and Formula Vee, Le Brocq won the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 2012. That same year he was bestowed with the CAMS Rising Star award, before being recruited into the FIA Institute Young Driver Excellence Academy.

Le Brocq caught the attention of Erebus team owner Betty Klimenko, who drafted him into her squad’s academy to drive Formula 3 and GT machinery; the latter included a podium in the 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour.

He made his Supercars Championship debut at Sandown in 2015 sharing one of the team’s E63 AMGs alongside Ash Walsh.

By that point Le Brocq had already completed nearly two Dunlop Super2 Series seasons, having debuted in 2014 in an Image Racing-run Falcon and then an MW Motorsport Ford in 2015.

Le Brocq moved to Tickford Racing - then known as Prodrive Racing Australia - for 2016 and won seven races, but was beaten to the crown by teammate Garry Jacobson. He dovetailed his Super2 program at the Ford squad with an Enduro Cup co-drive alongside Cam Waters, the pair finishing fourth together at Bathurst.

In 2017, he moved back to MW Motorsport for the Super2 Series and became Nissan’s first Super2 race winner at Symmons Plains. He also competed as a wildcard entry in a selection of Supercars Championship events, in addition to serving as Kelly’s Nissan co-driver in the Enduro Cup.

Le Brocq moved into the ‘main game’ with TEKNO in 2018, finishing the season as the best of five rookies, but a difficult second year led to a return to Tickford.

A first Supercars Championship career win came in 2020 in a mixed tyre format race at Sydney Motorsport Park, backing it up with a second at The Bend.

Le Brocq’s second season with Tickford started strongly with sixth in the opening race at Mount Panorama but, although he finished just one place lower in the final points standings than the previous year, top five results proved elusive.

Le Brocq shifted north to Matt Stone Racing for 2022, a season highlighted by strong qualifying performances; Le Brocq scored the team’s first front-row start at Symmons Plains and led the opening lap of the race.

He then shone in the inaugural season of Gen3, taking his maiden Supercars pole position at Hidden Valley and converting it to a commanding race victory, both firsts for the Gold Coast-based Chevrolet outfit.

10

NICK PERCAT

Matt Stone Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 35

FROM Adelaide, SA

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @nickpercat

INSTAGRAM @nickpercat

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2010

ROUNDS 145

RACES 322

WINS 5

PODIUMS 15

POLES 2

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2014

ROUNDS 7

RACES 20

BEST FINISH 4th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 6th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

WINS 1

PODIUMS 1

BEST QUAL 4th

CHAMP POS 4th

It took just two rounds for Nick Percat’s shift to Matt Stone Racing to bear fruit, taking an emotional race win in Supercars’ most recent round at Albert Park.

The move followed two challenging seasons at Walkinshaw Andretti United, the team that ushered him through the junior ranks towards Supercars and a shock Bathurst 1000 win on debut in 2011 with Garth Tander.

Signed by Walkinshaw Racing in 2007, Percat won the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 2009 with a record number of race wins, then finished fourth in the 2010 Super2 Series to earn the endurance drive that, in 2011, saw him become the first rookie Bathurst winner in over 30 years.

Percat remained part of HRT’s endurance line-up while racing in Super2 for Walkinshaw Racing until the end of 2012, before switching to drive in the Porsche Carrera Cup in 2013.

He finally joined the ‘main game’ full time with Walkinshaw in 2014 under a Racing Entitlements Contract owned by James Rosenberg.

A second place finish at Sydney Motorsport Park and a third place at the Bathurst 1000 headlined a season where Percat was the highest-placed rookie with 12th in points, but he was left without a drive when Rosenberg elected to sell his REC at the end of the season.

Percat landed at Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport in 2015 and spent the following two seasons driving for his former Formula Ford teammate’s minnow squad.

While it was a tough period, the combination scored an upset Adelaide 500 win in 2016, a season that also included a Bathurst 1000 podium alongside Cameron McConville, before he settled into a long stint at Brad Jones Racing.

It was at BJR where Percat established his credentials as a driver capable of winning races in his own right. In five seasons with the Albury-based team, he brought home top-10 points finishes in all but 2017, his first year driving for it.

Percat took a pair of upset victories during the COVID-impacted 2020 season, while a string of consistent top 10 results across 2020 and 2021 delivered back-to-back seventh placings in points.

His return to WAU was heralded as a homecoming but highlights were few, headed by a second-place finish behind teammate Chaz Mostert at the season-ending 2022 Adelaide 500, the team carrying a retro Holden Racing Team livery in the marque’s final event in the championship.

Things didn’t improve last year amid the team’s switch to Ford Mustang machinery, and the fourth-generation Holden employee renewed his links with General Motors at MSR this year.

11 ANTON DE PASQUALE

Shell V-Power Racing Team

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 28

FROM Melbourne, VIC

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @antondepasquale86

INSTAGRAM @antondepasquale

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2018

ROUNDS 81

RACES 187

WINS 9

PODIUMS 32

POLES 16

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2018

ROUNDS 3

RACES 7

BEST FINISH 5th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 3rd

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 5

BEST FINISH 7th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 2nd

CHAMP POS 21st

Anton De Pasquale is working to rebound from a challenging 2023 season in what is his fourth Championship campaign with the Shell V-Power Racing Team.

De Pasquale posted the team’s only victory of the inaugural year of Gen3, his triumph in the Sunday race in Townsville aided by an extra set of fresh tyres saved through his early retirement from the Saturday race.

He was also the first Ford driver home in the Repco Bathurst 1000, claiming his first ‘Great Race’ podium finish alongside co-driver Tony D’Alberto.

Like many Supercars stars before him, De Pasquale followed a successful career in karting by winning the Australian Formula Ford Championship, taking the title in 2013.

He then set his sights on European open wheelers, winning the highly competitive Formula Renault 1.6 NEC Championship in 2014 with nine victories in 15 races. The next step was the Formula Renault 2.0 Series, but a lack of funding meant opportunities beyond that proved limited and he returned to Australia determined to break into Supercars.

De Pasquale joined Paul Morris Motorsports in 2016 in the Dunlop Super2 Series, finishing 11th as a rookie and third in the Bathurst 250-kilometre mini-endurance race in an older generation FG Falcon.

The following year he stepped into an ex-Prodrive FG X Falcon with Morris’ team and claimed his first Super2 race and round wins at Phillip Island, followed later in the year with another race and round win at Sydney Motorsport Park, plus his first Super2 pole at Sandown on his way to fourth in the series.

He was given a rookie test with Erebus late in 2017 and subsequently signed on as a full- time driver for the following year as teammate to David Reynolds.

The headline of De Pasquale’s rookie season was a stunning Top 10 Shootout lap at the Bathurst 1000, where he stormed to third on the grid fractionally behind pole-winning teammate Reynolds and seven-time Supercars champion Jamie Whincup.

All up though, Reynolds had the youngster’s measure across their first two seasons together but the tide turned in 2020, with De Pasquale taking his first race win at Hidden Valley.

He shifted to Dick Johnson Racing in 2021, replacing the departing Scott McLaughlin and working with the three-time series champion’s former crew, headed by engineering guru Ludo Lacroix.

De Pasquale has claimed race wins across all three of his seasons with the team so far – including Ford’s milestone 400th ATCC/ Supercars Championship race win in 2021.

This year has seen De Pasquale paired with a new race engineer with Perry Kapper taking over the duties on the #11 Mustang in 2024.

12

JAXON EVANS

SCT Motorsport

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 27

FROM Levin, NZ

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @jaxonjevans

INSTAGRAM @jaxonevans_

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2022

ROUNDS 5

RACES 9

BEST FINISH 18th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 18th

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2024

ROUNDS N/A

RACES N/A

BEST FINISH N/A

PODIUMS N/A

BEST QUAL N/A

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 18th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 18th

CHAMP POS 22nd

Jaxon Evans arrived as a Repco Supercars Championship rookie with substantial international pedigree, the Kiwi having spent the past few years as a Porsche factory racer.

Born on the Fijian island of Rotuma, Evans was adopted as a baby by John and Deborah Evans, both of whom were involved in New Zealand motorsport as a mechanic and a racer respectively. In fact, Evans is a third-generation racer; his mum Deborah is part of the Lester their parents were a driving force behind the creation and running of the Manfeild Park circuit for several decades.

Moving to Australia when he was nine, Evans became interested in motorsport via the career of cousin Jono Lester, and started karting at age 11. That led to several seasons of karting and Formula Ford, but it was a test at Queensland Raceway aboard a McElrea Racing-run Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car when he was 17 years old that launched his career.

Evans’ impressive performance saw him brought under team boss Andy McElrea’s wing, ushering him up the Porsche ladder through GT3 Cup in 2015-16 and into Carrera Cup in 2017, culminating in a dominant 2018 season where he won six races amid 16 top-3 finishes on the way to the title.

His next career step came at the end of the year when he won the annual Porsche Junior Programme Shootout at Paul Ricard in France, beating out 10 other rising stars to earn a €225,000 scholarship and a drive in the 2019 Porsche Supercup, a regular support category at Formula 1 Grands Prix around Europe.

Despite no knowledge of the circuits, Evans impressed with a pole and a pair of podiums during a tough rookie season and landed a full-time drive in the Carrera Cup France for 2020. A title-winning season earnt him a return to Supercup for 2021, where he won at the Red Bull Ring on the way to second in the championship.

That result earnt him a multi-year contract with Porsche as one of its pool of gun steerers that it deploys to its GT partners in sportscar categories around the world.

Evans had dovetailed his 2021 Supercup season with a full-time World Endurance Championship drive with Dempsey Proton Racing - the team co-owned by movie and television star Patrick Dempsey - including making his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, while his Porsche contract saw him race across Europe and the United States in 2022 and 2023.

He made his Supercars debut as a co-driver with Brad Jones Racing at the 2022 Repco Bathurst 1000, and rejoined the team for last year’s endurance races before taking over the reins of the SCT Motorsport entry full-time this year.

14

BRYCE FULLWOOD

Middy’s Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 25

FROM Darwin, NT

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @brycefullwoodracing

INSTAGRAM @brycefullwood

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2018

ROUNDS 56

RACES 135

BEST FINISH 3rd

PODIUMS 1

BEST QUAL 3rd

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2022

ROUNDS 1

RACES 3

BEST FINISH 11th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 15th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 7th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 5th

CHAMP POS 14th

Bryce Fullwood looks to build on a strong first Gen3 season with Brad Jones Racing after coming agonisingly close to a maiden Repco Supercars Championship podium last year.

The Darwin product crossed the line third in the third race at Albert Park, only to drop to 12th with a post-race time penalty for an unsafe release from his pitstop.

The result had followed a career-best third-placing on the grid, one of several times Fullwood qualified the #14 Camaro inside the top 10.

A string of strong runs through the middle of the season, headlined by a top-five at Sydney Motorsport Park and a seventh at Bathurst with Dean Fiore, almost allowed him to crack the top 10 in points at year’s end.

The performances followed a steady first season with BJR in 2022, his best result of the season a fighting ninth place finish at the Repco Bathurst 1000.

Fullwood graduated to the ‘main game’ with Walkinshaw Andretti United in 2020 after winning the Dunlop Super2 Series title in 2019 in an MW Motorsport Nissan. Very much in the shadow of WAU’s star signing Chaz Mostert, Fullwood quietly went about settling into the top-flight before a series of mid-season qualifying performances captured attention.

His standout race result was a maiden podium finish at The Bend in September, ending the year as the best of two rookies on the championship grid that year.

He struggled to recapture that form in his sophomore season, however; fifth placings at Bathurst bookended a year that delivered only a handful of top-10 qualifying performances and race finishes.

Although technically a Supercars rookie in 2020, Fullwood already had five years of experience in the Dunlop Super2 Series, which he’d entered at the tender age of 16.

That first foray from karts into Super2 came in 2015, contesting the bulk of the season with Paul Morris Motorsports before switching to MWM for the final round, ending the year 17th.

He was 14th with MWM in 2016 and then 11th in 2017 after switching from one of the team’s previous-generation Falcons to a Nissan Altima mid-season, which brought an immediate upturn in results.

Fullwood’s career momentum took a hit in 2018 when he struggled to 17th in the Super2 standings with Matt Stone Racing, starting the year in a Falcon FG X before moving to a Commodore VF.

A move back to MWM for 2019 was touted as a make-or-break season and Fullwood made it count, winning the title in convincing fashion to earn his ‘main game’ promotion.

17

WILL DAVISON

Shell V-Power Racing Team

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 41

FROM Melbourne, VIC

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @willdavisonofficial

INSTAGRAM @willdavison_

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2004

ROUNDS 247

RACES 552

WINS 22

PODIUMS 79

POLES 28

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2006

ROUNDS 15

RACES 41

WINS 3

PODIUMS 5

POLES 2

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 5th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 8th

CHAMP POS 10th

Will Davison continues to prove a competitive force two decades on from his debut in the Repco Supercars Championship.

The veteran’s storied Supercars career came after climbing the open wheel racing ranks, winning the 2001 Australian Formula Ford Championship before taking on Europe. He raced Formula Renault, Formula 3 and A1 Grand Prix, and tested with the Minardi Formula 1 team in late 2004.

By that point, he had already made his Supercars debut courtesy of a handful of starts with Team Dynamik in 2004; he was supposed to drive full-time for it in 2005 before a deal broke down on the eve of the season-opening Adelaide 500.

Davison first linked with Dick Johnson Racing for the 2005 endurance races before joining the team full-time for 2006, his threeyear stint with the squad including finishing on the podium at Bathurst with Steven Johnson in 2007 and taking a maiden race and round win at Eastern Creek in 2008, plus another round triumph at Winton.

He joined the Holden Racing Team in 2009, a move that yielded a Bathurst win and second in the championship in its first year before a tough 2010.

Three years as a regular front-runner at Ford Performance Racing followed, ahead of a two-year stint with Erebus Motorsport during its Mercedes era, which produced one solitary victory at Wanneroo in 2015.

Davison then spent two years at TEKNO Autosports, winning Bathurst with Jonathon Webb and finishing fifth in the championship standings in 2016 prior to a second-year slump, but he remained on the grid for 2018 courtesy of a lifeline from 23Red Racing.

He led the team through a difficult maiden season and reaped the rewards in 2019 when Tickford Racing took over operating the 23Red entry, coming agonisingly close to wins at Queensland Raceway and The Bend. However, the team closed its doors during the early stages of 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic; Davison was fourth in the championship standings at the time yet out of a drive.

A co-drive lifeline came from Tickford, and a second-placing with Cam Waters at Bathurst earnt a golden late-career opportunity with DJR.

Front-running performances during the 2021 season were finally converted to wins in 2022, while Davison came one top-qualifying performance shy of netting the Pole Champion Award.

Ford’s parity deficit in the first year of Gen3 meant 2023 was challenging for Davison, for whom the highlight was a podium finish at Hidden Valley that was one of just two top-five finishes across the season.

18 MARK WINTERBOTTOM

DEWALT Racing Team 18

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 42

FROM Sydney, NSW

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @markjwinterbottom

INSTAGRAM @markjwinterbottom

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2003

ROUNDS 277

RACES 627

WINS 39

PODIUMS 119

POLES 36

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2004

ROUNDS 17

RACES 47

WINS 4

PODIUMS 8

POLES 2

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 2nd

PODIUMS 1

BEST QUAL 4th

CHAMP POS 9th

Mark Winterbottom returned to the winners list in last year’s Repco Supercars Championship with a longawaited maiden triumph for Team 18. The commanding win in Darwin broke a sevenyear drought and delivered his first race victory in a General Motors product.

Prior to joining Team 18 for 2019, Winterbottom - who has carried the nickname ‘Frosty’ for most of his career - had been synonymous with Ford.

Winning the Ford KartStars Series springboarded him into Formula Ford, where he finished runner-up to future Supercars rival Jamie Whincup in the 2002 Australian championship.

He was picked up by Stone Brothers Racing in 2003 and drove an AU Falcon to victory in the Super2 Series. That year he also made his Supercars Championship debut as an endurance driver in SBR’s second car.

He moved into the championship full-time in 2004 with Mark Larkham’s Falcon squad and joined Ford Performance Racing in 2006, beginning a relationship that spanned 13 seasons, earnt a Supercars Championship title and a Bathurst 1000 victory.

Victory in the 2013 Bathurst 1000 alongside Steve Richards remains Winterbottom’s Mount Panorama highlight, the win coming in his 11th start in the ‘Great Race’. He also secured a long sought-after championship win in 2015.

Winterbottom initially joined Team 18 on a two-year deal, but has since signed two more contract extensions to remain with the squad until the end of 2024.

His time with the team started with a bang, taking pole position in just his third event aboard its Triple Eight-built Commodore at Symmons Plains, but continued to fall agonisingly short of a breakthrough podium finish.

That drought continued into the final season of Gen2, although Winterbottom’s consistent top-10 results netted a ninth-place championship finish, his best since departing Tickford and equalling the best scored by any Team 18 driver.

The breakthrough podium finally came with a bang in 2023, with Winterbottom’s victory at Hidden Valley putting him on the top step for the first time since Pukekohe in late-2016.

Winterbottom’s success and longevity means he tops the lists of most race wins, podiums and poles among active drivers on the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship grid.

He has added to the podium metric with just two rounds of the 2024 season complete; Winterbottom raced his way to second place in the Friday race at Albert Park last month, representing his 119th trip to the dais across his Supercars career.

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19

MATT PAYNE

Penrite Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 21

FROM Auckland, NZ

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @matthewpayne.racing

INSTAGRAM @matthewpayne_7

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2022

ROUNDS 15

RACES 35

WINS 1

PODIUMS 3

POLES 1

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2024

ROUNDS N/A

RACES N/A

BEST FINISH N/A

PODIUMS N/A

BEST QUAL N/A

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 3rd

PODIUMS 2

POLES 1

CHAMP POS 7th

Matt Payne ended his rookie season with a bang in 2023, taking his maiden Repco Supercars Championship race win at one of the category’s marquee events.

The 21-year-old New Zealander turned in several impressive performances as the year went on, culminating in a pair of front-row starts at the final two rounds and a dominant drive at the VAILO Adelaide 500 that made him the 85th driver to win an ATCC/Supercars Championship race.

Payne’s performances are all the more remarkable given it was only his third full season racing cars since stepping up from karting, where the Auckland teen scored multiple championships.

Those successes initially led to a chance to race karts in Europe in 2020, but the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic scuppered the deal.

Instead, he graduated to circuit racing in New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series, winning the three-race 2021 title and finishing third in the New Zealand Grand Prix.

Payne was also the first recipient of the Team Porsche NZ scholarship under the tutelage of multiple Le Mans 24 Hours winner Earl Bamber, leading to a drive in Porsche Carrera Cup Australia in 2021. He impressed with back-to-back poles at The Bend and Townsville and put in an assured drive to victory at the latter round, finishing sixth in the standings overall.

Payne’s form saw him recruited as the foundation driver of the Grove Junior Team in mid-2021, with the goal of graduating to the Repco Supercars Championship with the squad last year.

There were indications he’d move to the ‘main game’ sooner than that, but Grove Racing elected to field him in a Nissan Altima in the second-tier class instead of rushing a promotion for 2022.

The extra season behind the wheel of a second-tier machine paid dividends with Payne sharpening his skills against a field of fellow Supercars aspirants, and he led the points early in the season off the back of his maiden race and round wins at Wanneroo.

But his title hopes took significant blows in Townsville, when he was the innocent victim of a crash off the start of the Sunday race, and the following round at Sandown, where he tangled with Matt Chadha while battling for second in the Saturday race. Payne rebounded with a win on the Sunday at Sandown and he remained in title contention all the way to the final race at Adelaide.

To cap his graduation, Payne finally made his ‘main game’ debut at the 2022 Repco Bathurst 1000, impressing alongside veteran Lee Holdsworth in finishing sixth.

20

DAVID REYNOLDS

TRADIE Beer Racing Team 18

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 38

FROM Albury, NSW

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @davidreynoldsv8supercar

INSTAGRAM @daffidreynolds

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2007

ROUNDS 199

RACES 438

WINS 8

PODIUMS 44

POLES 16

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2009

ROUNDS 11

RACES 30

WINS 1

PODIUMS 3

POLES 1

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 4th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 5th

CHAMP POS 5th

David Reynolds shifted to Team 18 for 2024 on the back of his best Repco Supercars Championship campaign in recent years.

The rise of Grove Racing over the past two seasons, and particularly the final rounds of 2023, allowed Reynolds to refresh the memories of those who’d forgotten his reputation as one of the category’s most formidable racers.

He held off the stern advances of eventual series champion Brodie Kostecki to claim a breakthrough victory for the team on the Gold Coast last year, ending a personal drought that stretched back to the final race of 2018 and falling on the 10th anniversary of his first win in the category.

Reynolds’ career to date is packed with success, winning the Australian Formula Ford and Carrera Cup titles en route to Supercars, where his debut came in 2007 as Cameron McConville’s co-driver at PWR Racing, and he drove a Tony D’Alberto Racing-run Holden in the 2008 Fujitsu (Super2) Series before graduating to the ‘main game’ in 2009 with Walkinshaw Racing.

Reduced to an endurance driver role for 2010, he returned to full-time duties with Kelly Racing in 2011 then jumped across to Rod Nash Racing to drive its FPR-prepared Falcon in 2012.

The move delivered instant results as Reynolds finished a close second in the 2012 Bathurst 1000 and built himself into a championship contender by 2015, finishing third that season before departing for Erebus.

He signed for Erebus when it was based on the Gold Coast and racing Mercedes-Benz AMG E63s, but the team elected to start afresh for 2016 with a move to Melbourne and ex-Walkinshaw Commodores. The year ended with a maiden podium finish at Sydney Olympic Park followed by their upset Bathurst 1000 triumph with Luke Youlden in 2017, and only a bout of ill-timed cramp stopped the pair from making it back-to-back ‘Great Race’ wins in 2018. The relationship soured during a rough 2020 campaign and they agreed to part ways at the end of the season, just one year into a 10-year deal.

His 2021 move to what was then known as Kelly Grove Racing put him in familiar surroundings, having driven for then-Holden team Kelly Racing in 2011.

After failing to grace the podium during his final season with Erebus, Reynolds returned to the dais in 2021 in just his fifth race with Kelly Grove Racing and led the resurgent Grove squad into the Gen3 era, which he opened with pole on Sunday in Newcastle.

Reynolds also became a factory GT driver in 2024, selected by Mercedes-AMG to join its pool of global stars in its ‘Expert’ tier.

23

TIM SLADE

PremiAir Nulon Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 38

FROM Hornsby, NSW

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD FACEBOOK @TimSladeRacing

INSTAGRAM @_timslade_

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2009

ROUNDS 198

RACES 433

WINS 2

PODIUMS 17

POLES 2

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2009

ROUNDS 12

RACES 31

BEST FINISH 6th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 2nd

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 8th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 8th

CHAMP POS 15th

Tim Slade aims to return to the Repco Supercars Championship podium in his second season with emerging squad PremiAir Nulon Racing.

Like many drivers, Slade began his career in open-wheelers. He finished second in the 2006 Australian Formula Ford Championship after also dabbling in Formula 3. Slade progressed to the Super2 Series in 2007 and the following year ran his own team to claim the Privateers Cup and a race and round win at Wakefield Park.

His persistence captured the attention of Supercars team owner Paul Morris and, with the help of long-time backer James Rosenberg, Slade was rewarded with a full-time championship drive in 2009. That season netted top 10 results alongside Morris in the Phillip Island and Bathurst endurance races.

A shift to Stone Brothers Racing in 2010 yielded further improvements, taking his first podium finish in 2011. A career best of fifth in points followed in 2012, before the Ford squad transformed into Erebus Motorsport for 2013.

He crossed the floor to Holden for the 2014 season, spending two years piloting Walkinshaw Racing Commodores then joining Brad Jones Racing in the Freightliner Commodore in 2016.

That season included the standout weekend of Slade’s career to date; at the Winton round he took his first Supercars race win at his 227th attempt and repeated the following day. He finished 2016 eighth in the championship, but the following years proved tougher and left Slade with little more than a few podium finishes.

Unable to land a full-time drive for 2020, Slade secured a co-drive with DJR Team Penske, helping Scott McLaughlin secure his third Supercars title at Bathurst, before returning to the grid with upstart squad Blanchard Racing Team in 2021.

He posted impressive results with the one-car outfit and came very close to scoring top-10 championship finishes in both 2021 and 2022, before shifting to PremiAir for 2023.

Bad luck scuppered Slade’s two best shots at podiums last year; a wheel nut problem turned fourth on the grid in Newcastle to 22nd, while engine problems took him out of fifth place at Symmons Plains.

Slade has proven his speed in various classes outside of Supercars in recent years, including winning the World Time Attack Challenge in 2016 and 2017, sharing the victory in the Intercontinental GT Challenge round at Laguna Seca in 2019 with HubAuto Racing, and setting a new outright lap record at Phillip Island aboard the Brabham BT62 supercar during 2022.

25

CHAZ MOSTERT

Mobil 1TM Optus Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 32

FROM Melbourne, VIC

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @chazmozzie

INSTAGRAM @chazmozzie

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2013

ROUNDS 144

RACES 330

WINS 21

PODIUMS 90

POLES 24

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2014

ROUNDS 6

RACES 17

BEST FINISH 2nd

PODIUMS 6

BEST QUAL 3rd

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 2nd

PODIUMS 3

POLES 1

CHAMP POS 3rd

Chaz Mostert began a new era of his career when the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship got underway. Veteran race engineer Adam DeBorre, who worked with Mostert for all but one of his full-time Supercars seasons, elected to step away from the sport at the end of 2023 with his place taken at Walkinshaw Andretti United by Sam Scaffidi.

It marked a significant change for one of the championship’s biggest stars, a two-time Repco Bathurst 1000-winner who is now over a decade into his Supercars career.

Mostert began his career in karts and won the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 2010, making his Dunlop Super2 Series debut the same year with Miles Racing. He competed in the series with them full-time in 2011 but was then snapped up by Ford Performance Racing, finishing third overall in 2012 with two round wins.

He began 2013 driving an ex-FPR Falcon for MW Motorsport in the Dunlop Series before receiving a ‘main game’ call-up to join Dick Johnson Racing and broke through for his maiden race win at Queensland Raceway, DJR’s first victory in three years.

Will Davison’s exit from FPR opened the door for the FPR-contracted Mostert to drive its #6 Ford in 2014, when he took a famous last-lap Bathurst win with Paul Morris. A year later Mostert was mounting a serious title challenge when a horror qualifying crash at Bathurst left him with a broken leg and wrist, sidelining him for the rest of the year. He returned for the start of 2016 and proved a regular front-runner for the Ford team over the next four seasons.

Mostert joined WAU for 2020 to take up the challenge of resurrecting the former champion squad’s fortunes. DeBorre made the move with him, and the 2021 season saw them deliver a breakthrough victory at Symmons Plains – WAU’s first in three years – plus further wins at Hidden Valley and at Bathurst where Mostert and co-driver Lee Holdsworth took a dominant victory, claiming pole position and fastest lap of the race on the way to his second ‘Great Race’ triumph.

The team’s switch to Ford for 2023 didn’t deliver the hoped-for silverware, but Mostert was the best-placed ‘Blue Oval’ driver in the final championship standings.

In addition to Supercars, Mostert has proven his pedigree in GT racing, undertaking a stint as a factory BMW driver that included pole position for the 2018 Bathurst 12 Hour and a class victory in the 2020 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. More recently, he became the co-owner of GT team Method Motorsport and will also spend the 2024 season driving a Ferrari 296 GT3 alongside Liam Talbot in the GT World Challenge Australia series.

26

RICHIE STANAWAY

Penrite Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 32

FROM Tauranga, NZ

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

INSTAGRAM @richiestanaway

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2016

ROUNDS 39

It was a very different Richie Stanaway that returned to the Repco Supercars Championship grid, just over four years since he quit the category and motorsport entirely.

For starters, he is now a Repco Bathurst 1000 winner. Triple Eight Race Engineering recruited the Kiwi to partner Shane van Gisbergen at last year’s endurance races, and he delivered two flawless drives to claim third at the Penrite Oils Sandown 500 and the victory at Mount Panorama – performances that completed an incredible redemption arc that culminated in a full-time seat for 2024 with Grove Racing.

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2018 ROUNDS

RACES

BEST FINISH 9th

BEST QUAL 7th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 4th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 5th

CHAMP POS 6th

Originally from a motocross background, Stanaway switched to speedway racing at age 12 and progressed through karts and open wheelers in Formula First and Formula Ford, clinching the New Zealand title in the latter in 2008/09. He competed in the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 2009 before taking up an opportunity in Germany to test and race in the German-based ADAC Formula Masters Championship, a title he returned to win in 2010 with 12 race wins.

He rose quickly through Formula Renault UK and won the 2011 German F3 Series before spending time in GP3, Porsche Supercup, Formula Renault 3.5 and GP2, but lost career momentum when he missed most of 2012 after breaking his back in a FR3.5 crash at Spa-Francorchamps. Although he recovered and went on to win races in GP3 and GP2, F1 opportunities weren’t forthcoming so Stanaway shifted focus to GT racing, landing a coveted seat in Aston Martin’s FIA World Endurance Championship GT squad that included opportunities to race in the famous Le Mans 24 Hour.

Stanaway made his Supercars in 2016 with an impressive pair of co-drives in the Prodrive-run Super Black Racing Falcon, and partnered with Cam Waters to win the Sandown 500 the following year. The good results – including a race win in a cameo Dunlop Super2 Series appearance – led to his full-time main game debut in 2018 with the team. It was a bruising rookie season however, and both parties decided to go their separate ways at the end of the year. After another difficult season at Garry Rogers Motorsport, Stanaway quit motorsport entirely and got a day job at home in New Zealand.

However, an opportunity from long-time support Peter Adderton put him back into a Boost Mobile-backed wildcard alongside Greg Murphy for the Bathurst 1000. Initially slated for 2021 but delayed a year to 2022 due to the logistics of travel during COVID lockdowns, a revitalised Stanaway qualified for the Top 10 Shootout in a performance that helped land the Triple Eight co-drive for 2023.

31

JAMES GOLDING

PremiAir Nulon Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 28

FROM Warragul, VIC

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @JamesGoldingMotorsport

INSTAGRAM @jimmygolding

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2016

ROUNDS 62

RACES 126

BEST FINISH 4th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 3rd

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2018

ROUNDS 3

RACES 7

BEST FINISH 10th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 9th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 5th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 4th

CHAMP POS 13th

The 2024 season marks James Golding’s fourth full-time campaign in the Repco Supercars Championship and second full year with PremiAir Racing.

An accomplished karter, the Warragul-raised racer has an Australia National title and two Victorian state titles to his name, while the Victorian represented Australia at the World Rotax Grand Finals in 2012, where he was ranked seventh in the world.

Golding graduated to open wheelers the following year, contesting the Victorian Formula Ford Championship and winning on debut.

Racking up the most race wins despite missing one round, Golding ended his maiden assault in fourth before stepping up to the national championship in 2014, when he was narrowly beaten to the title and finished third overall with five race wins.

Golding’s talent soon caught the eye of team owner Garry Rogers, who gave him the chance to contest the final round of the 2014 Dunlop Series at Sydney Olympic Park.

He impressed on debut, so much so that GRM granted him a drive in the Dunlop Series in 2015, setting his path to a full-time Supercars drive in motion.

Golding enjoyed a solid season in 2016 in a GRM-run Commodore, finishing fourth in the series with four podium finishes and two race wins at Phillip Island and Sandown.

He also made his ‘main game’ debut as James Moffat’s co-driver in the #34 GRM Volvo S60 in that year’s Enduro Cup, but his first race at Sandown ended abruptly when a punctured tyre pitched him into the wall at the Esses on the opening lap.

More enduro outings and solo wildcard starts followed in 2017 before Golding stepped up to a full-time seat with GRM in 2018, impressing with a strong drive at Bathurst where an airbox fire denied him a berth in the Top 10 Shootout ahead of an eighth-place finish on race day.

He remained with the team into a challenging 2019 season, but GRM’s exit from Supercars at the end of the year left him without a seat and at a career crossroads.

Golding kept his skills sharp in the emerging S5000 category, winning races in cars developed and run by GRM, and kept his hand in Supercars with impressive endurance drives with Team 18 in 2020 and 2021.

He was again scheduled to return to Team 18 for the 2022 Repco Bathurst 1000 until a mid-season opportunity came up with PremiAir Racing.

A series of eye-catching performances across the tail of the season secured a full-time drive with the team for 2023 when he again impressed, this time matched against veteran teammate Tim Slade.

55

THOMAS RANDLE

Tickford Racing

Ford Mustang GT

AGE 28

FROM Melbourne, VIC

LIVES Melbourne, VIC

FACEBOOK @thomasrandle49

INSTAGRAM @thomasrandle

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2019

ROUNDS 36

RACES 85

BEST FINISH 2nd

PODIUMS 5

POLES 1

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2022

ROUNDS 1

RACES 3

BEST FINISH 16th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 11th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 4th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 7th

CHAMP POS 8th

Thomas Randle began his third full season in the Repco Supercars Championship season off the back of a breakthrough season with Tickford Racing.

The Melburnian came on strong in the second half of 2023, taking his first pole position at The Bend and finishing all three races on the podium before claiming another in Adelaide, and he remained with the team amid its reduction to two entries for 2024.

Randle was a star in karts and made the move into car racing in 2013 in the Australian Formula Ford Series, winning the 2014 series with five race victories.

He finished runner-up in the 2015 CAMS Jayco Australian Formula 4 Championship and third in that year’s national Sports Sedan series in father Dean’s V8-powered Saab.

Randle gathered further open-wheel experience overseas in British Formula 3 (winner of two races at Rockingham and Spa), Formula V8 3.5 Series, Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, Formula Renault 2.0 NEC as well as LMP3 sportscar competition, and victory in New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series in 2017.

Randle made a one-off appearance in a Rusty French-owned Falcon BF in the 2017 V8 Touring Car Series round at Queensland Raceway and stepped into Super2 with Tickford in 2018.

It proved a breakout year; Randle won the prestigious Mike Kable Young Gun Award after an impressive rookie season that included a pole position and a podium finish in Perth. The following year saw Randle claim his first race and round wins and two more poles on his way to third in points.

Randle also made his ‘main game’ debut with the Ford squad in 2019, driving at Tailem Bend as a wildcard before an Enduro Cup campaign with Lee Holdsworth that included a third place finish in the Sandown 500.

A switch to MW Motorsport for the 2020 Super2 Series paid dividends as Randle romped to the title, finishing either first or second in all seven races of the COVID-shortened season.

The win capped a rollercoaster 12 months for Randle. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer in late 2019 and had treatment throughout 2020, completing his last round of chemotherapy on New Year’s Day in 2021.

After signing to co-drive at Brad Jones Racing for 2020, Randle returned to Tickford in 2021 with a pair of top-10 finishes in wildcard ‘main game’ appearances before graduating full-time drive for 2022.

Armed with impressive race pace and improving his qualifying performances throughout the year, Randle’s best chances for breakthrough results in 2022 were hobbled by pit stop and mechanical issues, while he was lucky to escape a nasty startline crash at The Bend without injury.

87

WILL BROWN

Red Bull Ampol Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 25

FROM Toowoomba, QLD

LIVES Toowoomba, QLD

FACEBOOK @willbrown38

INSTAGRAM @willbrown38

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2018

ROUNDS 46

RACES 108

WINS 7

PODIUMS 19

POLES 6

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2022

ROUNDS 1

RACES 2

BEST FINISH 19th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 21st

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

WINS 2

PODIUMS 6

POLES 1

CHAMP POS 1st

Will Brown stepped into some very big shoes in taking over Shane van Gisbergen’s seat at Triple Eight Race Engineering for 2024, but has risen to the occasion and leads the championship after winning the Larry Perkins Perpetual Trophy at Albert Park.

The Toowoomba product moved to the Brisbane-based squad off the back of three seasons with Erebus Motorsport, where he grew from race-winning rookie to a genuine title contender.

Brown made his full-time ‘main game’ debut in 2021 aboard Erebus Motorsport’s flagship #9 entry previously raced by David Reynolds, although his graduation was originally announced by the team way back in November 2019.

He delivered a top-five finish in the third round at Symmons Plains, while the quadruple-header at Sydney Motorsport Park was particularly fruitful.

He took his maiden podium finish, then his first pole position, then, at the third SMP round, held off a charging but sparring Triple Eight duo Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup to take a popular and emotional maiden race victory.

Brown capped the year with provisional pole for the Repco Bathurst 1000. His sophomore season contained more downs than ups, highlighted by a strong mid-year run that netted a podium finish at Sandown.

Erebus emerged as frontrunners in the first season of the Gen3 era, with Brown taking several race wins in the first half of the season to take the championship lead in Townsville, before a series of incidents in the second half scuppered his title bid.

Prior to Supercars, Brown first established his pedigree with a pair of junior category title wins in 2016, claiming both the Australian Formula 4 Championship and Toyota 86 Racing Series in the same season.

He moved to the Dunlop Super2 Series in 2017 aboard an Eggleston Motorsport Holden Commodore and made an immediate impact, ending the season with the Mike Kable Young Gun Award.

A mechanical failure cost him a maiden race win at Newcastle in 2017; he had to wait until 2019 to finally break through for a race victory, winning under lights at the Perth SuperNight event.

He finished sixth in the 2018 Dunlop Super2 Series but was 12th in an inconsistent 2019 campaign, before scoring second in 2020 after switching to Image Racing with backing from Erebus.

From 2018 to 2020 he dovetailed his Super2 campaigns with endurance co-drives at Erebus, joining Anton De Pasquale for two years before linking with David Reynolds.

88

BROC FEENEY

Red Bull Ampol Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 21

FROM Gold Coast, QLD

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @brocfeeney93

INSTAGRAM @brocfeeney93

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2020

ROUNDS 29

RACES 64

WINS 9

PODIUMS 19

POLES 5

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2022

ROUNDS 1

RACES 3

BEST FINISH 4th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 2nd

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

WINS 3

PODIUMS 5

POLES 2

CHAMP POS 2nd

Broc Feeney’s rapid rise in the Repco Supercars Championship has positioned him as one of the favourites to win the 2024 title.

Last year, the 21-year-old built on his impressive 2022 rookie campaign in the first season of Gen3 with a string of race victories that earnt him the tag ‘Mr Sunday’, culminating in a decisive victory alongside team boss Jamie Whincup at the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.

While his title challenge faltered with a mechanical failure at the Repco Bathurst 1000, third place in the final standings in just his second full-time Supercars season provided more than adequate illustration of why Triple Eight recruited him back in 2021 as its star of the future.

A protege of 2014 Bathurst 1000 winner Paul Morris, Feeney built an impressive CV on the road to Supercars. Following in the footsteps of father Paul Feeney, who raced on two wheels in the 1970s and ‘80s, Broc began racing motorbikes at the age of three.

He moved across to karts at age nine and then cars at 15, becoming the youngest race winner in Toyota 86 Racing Series history before making the leap to the Super3 Series. Feeney became the category’s youngest champion, taking a first-up pole position and race win in the opening round ahead of a consistent run to the title.

He graduated to the Dunlop Super2 Series with Tickford Racing in 2020 and finished seventh overall in the COVID-impacted season, qualifying on the front row of the grid for both races at Sydney Motorsport Park in July but crashing out of the Bathurst finale.

A switch to Triple Eight for 2021 paid dividends with Feeney claiming the Super2 title off the back of four wins and four second placings across the 10-race season, along with three pole positions that earnt him the Super2 Pole Champion Award.

It also earnt him a full-time promotion to the ‘main game’ for 2022, taking over the seat of seven-time champion Whincup.

Feeney impressed quickly, posting his first front row start and maiden podium finishes in the second round at Symmons Plains and taking a total of 25 top 10 finishes across the season, which ended with his first race victory at the VALO Adelaide 500.

Feeney already had a pair of Bathurst 1000 starts under his belt prior to his full-time graduation. The first came in 2020, pairing with Tickford Racing’s James Courtney to a top 10 finish on the day of his 18th birthday.

He took on lead driver duties one year later in a Triple Eight wildcard entry with Russell Ingall, and dovetailed the high-profile role with his ultimately successful pursuit of the Super2 Series title on the same weekend.

96

MACAULEY JONES

Pizza Hut Racing

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 29

FROM Albury, NSW

LIVES Albury, NSW

FACEBOOK @officialmacauleyjones

INSTAGRAM @macauleyjones96

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2015

ROUNDS 81

RACES 180

BEST FINISH 6th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 8th

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2019

ROUNDS 2

RACES 5

BEST FINISH 13th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 15th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 19th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 15th

CHAMP POS 20th

Macauley Jones is in his sixth full-time Repco Supercars Championship season in 2024, all with Brad Jones Racing.

The son of team owner and former driver Brad, Jones is another youngster who rose through karting into Formula Ford, winning the Australian championship’s Rookie of the Year award in 2012.

In 2013 he took a string of five straight race wins on his way to fourth in points, a year that he also raced in New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series.

Jones moved into the Dunlop Super2 Series with BJR midway through 2013 and started the first of four full-time seasons in the class the following year.

He finished 12th, ninth and seventh in his first three campaigns and then suffered a series of misfortunes that cost a breakthrough win and a shot at the title in 2018, including two suspension failures in Townsville and contact from Garry Jacobson at The Chase on the last lap at the Bathurst round.

Although remaining without a race win in the Dunlop Super2 Series itself, Jones did take out the Bathurst 250-kilometre race when it was a non-points event in 2017.

Jones already had 23 races in the Supercars Championship under his belt prior to his rookie season in 2019, spending four years as an Enduro Cup co-driver at BJR. Two of those campaigns came alongside Nick Percat, scoring a best Bathurst result of seventh in 2018 and a best race result of sixth at the Gold Coast 600 just weeks later.

Jones moved into the ‘main game’ with a full-time drive in 2019 when he took over the reins of the Team CoolDrive entry from Tim Blanchard.

However, his full-time Supercars career endured a false start at the Adelaide 500 a brake failure-induced crash in practice meant Jones missed the season-opening race. He ended his rookie season 21st in the championship and improved to 19th in his last season in CoolDrive colours in 2020.

Blanchard’s move to start his own squad in 2021 saw Jones move completely under the BJR umbrella, piloting its #96 Coca-Cola sponsored entry and posting a pair of top-10 qualifying efforts at Hidden Valley and Townsville. In 2022, Jones posted the best race finish of his solo-driver Supercars career with sixth place at Albert Park, equalling his enduro best from 2018. Retaining Pizza Hut backing for the first year of the Gen3 era, Jones netted a pair of seventh-placings as his best from a challenging year.

Outside of the cockpit, Jones also hosts the team’s podcast, The Brad Jones Racing Run Down, with BJR team manager Chris Westwood.

99

TODD HAZELWOOD

Erebus Motorsport

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

AGE 28

FROM Adelaide, SA

LIVES Gold Coast, QLD

FACEBOOK @ToddHazelwoodRacing

INSTAGRAM @toddhazelwood

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

DEBUT 2017

ROUNDS 85

RACES 193

BEST FINISH 3rd

PODIUMS 1

POLES 1

NEW ZEALAND STATS

DEBUT 2018

ROUNDS 3

RACES 7

BEST FINISH 5th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 11th

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP STATS

RACES 6

BEST FINISH 6th

PODIUMS 0

BEST QUAL 7th

CHAMP POS 11th

Initially signed to be an enduro co-driver for Erebus Motorsport, Todd Hazelwood started the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship in the championshipwinning car in place of Brodie Kostecki.

The South Australian racer’s early career included both dirt and sprint karting before stints in Formula Ford and Formula 3. In 2013 Hazelwood took out the ‘Shannons Supercar Showdown’ reality television competition, winning the chance to make his Super2 Series debut at that year’s Sydney finale, although he crashed out during qualifying.

He returned to the second-tier class in 2014 with Matt Stone Racing and won the Mike Kable Young Gun Award. He finished fifth in the 2015 series and third in 2016 in an MSR-run Holden before winning the series in 2017.

That same year, Hazelwood hit the headlines for all of the wrong reasons at the Sandown 500 when he was pitched into a car-destroying roll over during his Saturday qualifying race. Unhurt and undaunted, Hazelwood earnt plenty of fans by hopping into his Super2 car an hour after the crash and taking a third placing that was crucial to his run to the title.

Hazelwood and MSR progressed to the Supercars Championship together the following year but endured a rough run, switching from a troublesome Falcon FG X to a Commodore VF mid-season.

He was able to show his potential the following year thanks to a newer ZB Commodore from Triple Eight and made the leap to BJR for 2020.

The switch to the Albury-based squad ticked off some major career milestones. Hazelwood made a maiden visit to a championship podium at Sydney Motorsport Park and scored a pole position in Townsville.

His second year with BJR started slowly but turned around at the mid-way point; a string of top-five and top-10 finishes across the second half of the season vaulted him to 13th in points, punctuated by a career-best eighthplace finish at Bathurst with Dean Fiore.

A return to MSR for 2022 delivered a handful of impressive runs, headlined by top-five finishes at Symmons Plains and Albert Park, and he ended the year with a pair of Top 10 Shootout appearances at his home event in Adelaide.

Hazelwood made the move to the Blanchard Racing Team for the inaugural season of Gen3, but a fourth at Barbagallo and a Top 10 Shootout berth at the Sandown 500 proved the highlights of an otherwise challenging year.

He has been surrounded by familiar faces this year, having been teammate to Le Brocq at MSR in 2022, while Erebus CEO Barry Ryan served as his race engineer during his Formula Ford season with Minda Motorsport in 2012.

Jamie Whincup gives arch rival Mark Winterbottom a shove heading into the then-new chicane complex on the back straight at Pukekohe in 2013. The pair clashed on multiple occasions during the Supercars Championship’s spectacular return to the Auckland venue.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Justin Deeley, AN1 Images

Taupō Motorsport Park is a hidden treasure of Kiwi motorsport that is set to shine under the Supercars spotlight, writes STEFAN BARTHOLOMAEUS.

Exploring a new circuit is an exciting and relatively rare treat for the Repco Supercars Championship’s teams and drivers.

Taupō Motorsport Park is the first new addition to the schedule since South Australia’s The Bend made its debut six years ago. Discounting temporary street tracks, adding venues before that involved serious long-haul travel, to the Circuit of the Americas in Texas (2013), Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina (2010), the Bahrain International Circuit (2006) and China’s Shanghai (2005).

Supercars debuted at each of those circuits when they were merely months old and looking to establish themselves on the global motorsport map. Taupō has a very different backstory, but is also poised to gain fresh attention when the Aussie circus comes to town.

The circuit’s origins date to 1959, when the Taupō Car Club created a dirt track to the northwest of the town, featuring six corners across less than 1.4km. Dirt soon gave way to asphalt and the venue hosted various national race meetings across the decades, as well as other club activities.

Fast-forward to 2005 and major private investment transformed the venue into an international-standard facility. The circuit itself received a redesign with input from Kiwi ex-Formula 1 driver Chris Amon, resulting in multiple layouts including a 3.5km and 17-turn, International Circuit.

That attracted the A1 Grand Prix series, Taupō hosting the self-titled ‘World Cup of Motorsport’ three times from 20072009. These were the biggest international circuit racing events to hit New Zealand in decades and featured local hero Jonny Reid fighting for victories against a crop

Above: Part of the significant cultural welcome held at the circuit last September to officially welcome Supercars to Aotearoa. Opposite: Taupō sits in one of the most scenic parts of New Zealand.

of visiting young guns, most famously including Germany’s soon-to-be F1 star Nico Hulkenberg.

The costs of hosting such events were high and set the circuit’s owners back financially. A deal was struck for A1GP to move its NZ fixture to Hampton Downs before the series itself folded. Taupō meanwhile focused on national events and, amid efforts to lift its fortunes, was rebranded Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park in 2015 before being offered for sale.

Enter business savvy, motorsport mad, Tony Quinn. After a rejected bid to buy the circuit in 2015, he finally got his way six years later and added Taupō to his expanding portfolio of tracks that includes the self-built Highlands Motorsport Park near Cromwell that opened in 2013, Hampton Downs in northern Waikato and Queensland Raceway over in Australia.

Amazingly, Taupō will become the first of Quinn’s circuits to host a Supercars Championship round under his ownership. Hampton Downs came close, scheduled to hold an event in 2020 before COVID-19 intervened, while Queensland Raceway features as a test track for local teams but is yet to return to the racing schedule despite great investment in improving its facilities.

When Pukekohe’s sudden closure led to New Zealand being left off the Supercars schedule entirely last year, it seemed inevitable that one of Quinn’s venues would get the nod for 2024.

“The Kiwis are going to love the excitement of it all,” Quinn said upon the announcement. “While some people might be surprised that it’s at our Taupō track, we think it’s a winning combination – the track will provide excellent racing, Taupō and their community have a proven track record in hosting world-class events, and we know that Supercars knows how to make the magic happen.

“Since purchasing the park at the end of 2021, we’ve been full steam ahead bringing it up to ‘TQ’ standard and it’s

“THE KIWIS ARE GOING TO LOVE THE EXCITEMENT OF IT ALL”

special for our organisation to be part of the team making Supercars a reality back in NZ, in one of the most stunning regions in the country.”

Quinn is serious about making the Taupō Supercars round a success. His goal is not only to grow it to be one of Supercars’ showpieces but entice the category to expand its stay in NZ to a double-header, under which Taupō and Hampton Downs would both get a gallop on the hotly contested calendar. The thirst for Supercars in the market, he argues, is such that it can sustain two events.

For now, his team is focused on Taupō. Among those on Quinn’s books is Kiwi racing royalty Greg Murphy, who holds the somewhat generic title of motorsport manager at NZ’s three ‘Quinn-rings’. For Murph, it’s a wide-reaching remit that involves working closely with CEO Josie Spillane across the three circuits, as well as other activities including the Tony Quinn Foundation that supports young drivers.

Murphy has relished playing a small part in Taupō’s rejuvenation under Quinn’s ownership.

“It had great bones,” Murphy says. “It had a lot of investment put into it when A1GP rolled into town back in the 2000s, the track was extended and a whole lot

Above: Tony Quinn. Main: Taupō will become the 35th venue to host the ATCC/Supercars Championship.

of work was done, thanks mainly to the Giltrap Group who had a big part to play in that whole arrangement.

“Since then it’s meandered along doing its thing. It was being under-utilised and TQ had his eye on it. Taupō is an amazing region, great location, a very touristy location, very central. The track has a great design and the facility is good, it’s right up there with as good as you’ll find anywhere in Australasia.

“Tony has just put the money in and invested in the areas where it needed upgrading and attention. And that’s ongoing. There’s been resurfacing, a pitlane exit has gone in for Supercars, and the pit complexes and general facility has been improved and been brought up to standard.

“That has included safety improvements. A lot of those have been done off the circuit’s own bat, it’s not because it’s been forced, but we as a group saw the need for some improvements and went and made them. It’s been awesome for another race track in New Zealand to get the investment that it’s needed to take it to a level where Supercars can turn up and put on a show.”

So just what sort of show will Supercars put on at Taupō? It’s a question Murphy is perhaps better qualified than anyone to answer, given he’s raced there in similar cars during the short-lived NZ V8 SuperTourer category’s existence, and one of few to have sampled it in a Gen3 Supercar. Those laps came at the Historic GP in January, where Quinn and Craig Lowndes also got behind the wheel.

“I’m as excited about finding that out as anyone else,” says Murphy of what the racing will be like. “It’s a reasonably complex track, over 3km long, and there’s some real challenges to it. There’s compromise required in some places to maximise lap time, but it creates opportunity for racing and passing.

“The Turn 1-2-3-4-5 section is a really interesting and exciting part of the race track that you have to really get right. There’s going to be some challenges there with some of the grip limitation of the surface through that section.

“Then we’ve got the very fast Turn 8 and Turn 9 complex and tricky Turn 11, which I reckon will be a really good passing place as well. It’s not a simple race track to master and the challenge will be looking

Taupō Motorsport Park becomes the 35th circuit to host a round of the Australian Touring Car/Supercars Championship since the competition began in 1960; the third in New Zealand following the now-closed Pukekohe Park Raceway and the shortlived Hamilton street circuit.

Look back at first visits to permanent circuits in the modern era and a pattern soon emerges; the dominance of Triple Eight Race Engineering.

A maiden trip to The Bend in 2018 yielded a pair of front-row lockouts for the Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup-driven Red Bull rockets, which took a win apiece under the two-race format. At the Circuit of the Americas in 2013, Whincup romped to victory in three of the four races. Wind back to 2010 and it was another Whincup benefit, this time two wins from two starts at Yas Marina.

“When you go to a new track for the first time, you are extra motivated to try and perform,” explained team manager and former engineer to Whincup, Mark Dutton, in V8 Sleuth’s book, Triple Eight: The Cars, 20032023. “All engineers would be the same. It’s new and there’s no previous data.”

While the addition of previously unvisited permanent circuits is rare, five of the last eight new events to appear on the calendar have been street circuits: Albert Park (which became

a championship round in 2018 after many years as a non-points showcase), Newcastle (2017), Sydney Olympic Park (2009), Reid Park Townsville (2009) and of course Hamilton (2008).

Although results were rather more mixed across those events, Whincup wrapped up the championship in the respective deciders on the then-new Sydney and Newcastle circuits. The first visit to Hamilton, however, was less fruitful as Whincup crashed out of the weekend in qualifying. ■

after the Dunlops in some sections and maximising in others.”

Speak to any current Supercars driver or engineer with knowledge of Taupō and it doesn’t take long for them to mention tyres. Take Brad Jones Racing star Andre Heimgartner, who also tackled the track in V8 SuperTourers against the likes of Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin, as an example.

“The racing will be interesting,” Heimgartner says. “A bit of the circuit has been resurfaced, but it’s quite an old track so it’s quite abrasive. We’ll see tyre degradation, which will be cool, any time we have that it’s like the old Perth days, the racing there was pretty epic with people just flying off the cliff (of tyre life) and being super slow, so I think we’ll see some good action.”

The prospect of high tyre degradation will make pitstop strategy vital in the two 200km races and could be the key to

unlocking on-track overtaking too.

“We’ve had great racing there in the past,” adds Murphy. “When we had SuperTourers there, a car similar in weight and tyre size to a Supercar but a bit less horsepower, from what I remember back to then we had some very exciting racing. I would hope that carries over to Supercars.

“The Gen3 car feels really big on that race track. It’s not overly big of course, but where you sit inside the car and the extremities of the car, they feel like they’re a long way away from where you’re sitting. A whole field of 24 cars is going to look spectacular.

“The track limits side of things is going to be a big one for everyone to keep an eye on as well. There are places around Taupō where people do try and take advantage, but the systems in place in Supercars should be able to manage that pretty well.”

Fairly or not, the action at Taupō will be compared to that delivered in previous years at NZ’s two previous Supercars homes, Pukekohe and Hamilton. The high-speed Auckland venue was a favourite of the Supercars

ground for local fans.

“It is big shoes to fill,” admits Murphy. “When you’ve got that much history for Supercars and Group A and all that at Pukekohe, and the rest of the history that Pukekohe has got and how fans flocked there over the years and have got stories through generations they talk about, to start something from scratch in Taupō this year is a big transition. But I think it’s a very good one.

“The location is going to create a great vibe. Having a location that’s only a few minutes down the road from the Taupō centre and what Taupō brings to the table as far as a town and a region and the tourist aspect of it, I think that’s going to bring an amazing feeling that we haven’t had since maybe the Wellington street races.

“Hamilton had a good vibe, but I don’t think we ever managed to get from Hamilton what was intended, it never quite hit off the way everyone thought it would. Taupō should actually do that, in a big way. It’s a start of a new era in that respect and it’s a different track, we’ve got to segment what we had at Pukekohe and how wonderful that was. The fact fraternity and sacred that, at of it is that’s not an option anymore.” ■

Above: Quinn, Craig Lowndes and Greg Murphy all turned laps of Taupō in a Gen3 Camaro in January, amid a celebration of General Motors machinery.

THE

ONLINE AUTHORITY OF AUSTRALasIAN MOTORSPORT

Before more pages are added to New Zealand’s Supercars story, STEFAN BARTHOLOMAEUS looks back at 10 memorable moments from years gone by.

1996

A TASTE OF THE FUTURE

A two-event, non-championship showcase in November 1996 sits in the history books as a bridge between eras for Australian touring car teams travelling to New Zealand.

Refiring a tradition that had boomed under international Group A regulations during the 1980s and early 1990s, a 12-car V8 fleet took part in back-to-back events at Pukekohe and Wellington that will forever be remembered for the emergence of a new Kiwi motor racing hero.

Greg Murphy, a 24-year-old from Hastings, had just come off fairytale wins at the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 as

co-driver to Craig Lowndes. With Lowndes heading to Europe to chase a Formula 1 dream in 1997, Murphy was given the keys to the #1 Holden Racing Team entry for his home races.

Driving to secure a full-time contract for the following year, Murphy rose to the occasion. He took a clean-sweep of the three races at Pukekohe and fought back from a crash in practice at the tricky Wellington course to win Race 3 and defeat Ford hero John Bowe in the two-event Mobil NZ Series.

Above: Murphy leads Glenn Seton off the line for the first of three races at Pukekohe in 1996. Behind them is Paul Radisich, making his first solo appearance in a Supercar prior to joining the category full-time in 1999. Inset: Murphy (C) took out the Wellington round from Bowe (R) and Neil Crompton (L).

2001

MURPHY MAKES HISTORY

Pukekohe held the first-ever V8 Supercars Championship round to take place outside of Australia in November of 2001, and it was again Murphy who thrilled the crowd with a dominant display.

A repeat of his 1996 trick of pole and three race wins was a dream result. Images of the #51 Kmart Holden cresting the Pukekohe hill under the Sunday sunshine to rapturous applause are forever etched in the memories of many. But what’s often

forgotten is that victory in the first race, held on the Saturday, was initially awarded to Ford driver Mark Larkham.

The now popular TV pundit had stayed

out on slicks amid a downpour and briefly led before crashing out. Red flags flew and the race was abandoned, with the result taken back to lap 30, when Larkham was in front. Long after the fans had left the circuit, it was deemed the lap 31 order should stand and Murphy was awarded the win over Mark Skaife; a result that secured the latter the championship.

2005

THE UNDISPUTED KING

No matter which way you slice it, the Supercars Championship’s early trips across the Tasman really were all about that man Murph.

He extended his 2001 triumph into a Pukekohe hattrick with Kmart Racing and, after finally being defeated in 2004, returned a year later to take an against-the-odds clean sweep that forever cemented his status as the King of Pukekohe.

Top: A massive crowd turned out to watch Murphy sweep the 2001 round. Left: Murphy accepted the cheers from the bonnet of the #51 Holden. Above: His final round win came at Pukekohe in 2005. Below: A crash between Craig Baird and Paul Dumbrell drew a red flag during the final race in 2005.

The 2005 triumph followed a switch to PWR Racing and was sealed in dramatic circumstances after a heavy crash for Paul Dumbrell and Craig Baird as rain fell in Race 3 led to a lengthy red flag stoppage. Racing resumed in near darkness and Murphy held his nerve in wet conditions across the final 16 laps to lead home Russell Ingall by less than a second.

Although unimaginable at the time, it proved the final round win of Murphy’s Supercars career, which lost momentum following the move to PWR. The fact that four of his 11 career wins came amid a five-year stretch at Pukekohe only serves to underline the special connection between driver and circuit.

2008

WHINCUP IN THE WALL

Supercars’ New Zealand fixture moved to a new home in 2008 following its seven-year stretch at Pukekohe. A street circuit in Hamilton was devised to capitalise on the ever-growing popularity of the category amid a similar surge in new city-based events in Australia.

It was a dramatic debut as championship leader Jamie Whincup tasted the unforgiving nature of the circuit’s barriers in qualifying. Tagged by a slow-moving Todd Kelly, Whincup’s Vodafone-backed Triple Eight Falcon spun and made violent contact with walls on both sides of the concrete-lined venue.

The damage ruled Whincup out of the entire weekend, which went on to be

Above: Tander dominated Supercars’ first weekend in Hamilton. Below: Whincup took no further part after a qualifying crash. Right: van Gisbergen celebrates his maiden win. Below right: SVG’s win came with Stone Brothers Racing.

dominated by HRT star Garth Tander. Whincup sunk to fifth in the championship as a result, before a stellar second half of the season netted his first Supercars title. Whincup also avenged his 2008 Hamilton horror by going undefeated at the venue during the next two years, driving a Ford in 2009 and a Holden in 2010.

2011

A STAR IS BORN

The most famous moment of the Hamilton 400’s five-year existence came on Sunday at the 2011 event, where Kiwi

Shane van Gisbergen scored his maiden Supercars race win and celebrated with a spectacular burnout that would become his signature.

Although still only 21 years old, the breakthrough win came in van Gisbergen’s 112th Supercars Championship start. It was the first Supercars win for a Kiwi on home soil since Murphy’s remarkable run; an era in which van Gisbergen himself had been among those clapping for the #51 Commodore.

The excitement over the emergence of a new Kiwi star ultimately wasn’t enough to save the Hamilton street race, which lasted just one more year. It did, however, put SVG well and truly on the map, and stands as one of only two NZ triumphs for the Ford team run by Kiwi brothers Ross and Jim Stone.

2013 WORTHY WINNERS

The Supercars Championship returned to a revamped Pukekohe in 2013. There was a fleet of new cars thanks to the introduction of the Car of the Future regulations that season, and a special new prize to play for; the Jason Richards Trophy named in honour of the popular driver who passed away in 2011.

Top: Whincup and Winterbottom lead the field away in Pukekohe’s return to the calender in 2013. Above: Jason Bright took an emotional triumph in 2013, earning the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy.

A four-race format delivered four different winners and incredible drama. A 19-year-old Kiwi rookie, Scott McLaughlin, became Supercars’ youngest-ever winner in Race 1 but crashed back to earth with a heavy hit on Sunday. Jamie Whincup won the second race on a weekend where he clashed twice with arch rival Mark Winterbottom, while the latter’s teammate Will Davison took out Race 3.

But it was Jason Bright who emerged as the weekend’s true hero. He swept to victory in the final race and won the JR Trophy for top-scoring the weekend, doing so in the #8 Brad Jones Racing entry that Richards had driven in his final years in the category. It was a hugely popular result.

2015

LAZARUS LOWNDES

Craig Lowndes never cracked it for a Supercars race win on New Zealand soil in

Main: Lowndes enters Turn 1 backwards after a tyre failure on the front straight during the Saturday race in 2015. Inset: Triple Eight rebuilt the car overnight, allowing him to finish second to teammate Whincup in the Sunday race.

51 attempts. It’s a remarkable statistic for one of the category’s true greats, who sits second on the championship’s all-time win tally with 110.

His most dramatic Kiwi heartbreak happened in the second Saturday race of 2015, when the left-rear Dunlop on his Triple Eight Commodore suddenly exploded on the front straight while leading the race. Lowndes was sent spinning into the outside concrete wall, heavily damaging both the car and his hopes of running down points leader Mark Winterbottom in the championship battle.

The incident sparked one of the great rebuilds of the modern era; an all-night effort that included the car being taken to a local crash repair shop. Although far from perfect, the car was good enough for Lowndes to finish second behind teammate Whincup on Sunday in a result that team boss Roland Dane declared to be one of his squad’s finest moments.

2017

COULTHARD FLIPS OUT

Pukekohe’s position as the penultimate round of the 2017 season meant the Kiwi event set the battle lines for the famous Newcastle decider that followed.

Fabian Coulthard was Whincup’s closest

Above: Coulthard’s demolished DJR Team Penske Falcon was rebuilt overnight in 2017. Below: The contentious ‘park in’ at the end of the Saturday race in 2018.

challenger heading to NZ. He’d led the standings before the previous round on the Gold Coast and was still very much a contender at only 17 points adrift of Whincup, and 10 ahead of teammate McLaughlin.

However, it all came apart in the Pukekohe opener. A divebomb from Chaz Mostert on David Reynolds at the hairpin put Coulthard side-by-side with the latter heading into the high-speed final corners, where minor contact sent both off the road, resulting in a rollover for the Shell Ford.

Mostert was penalised for his role in the incident, also harpooning any realistic hopes he had of the title. The other outside contender, van Gisbergen, appeared to strike it big with the Saturday win, only to misjudge the pit entry on Sunday and crash himself out of the running. Whincup led home McLaughlin in the Sunday race and eventually triumphed at a dramatic Newcastle.

2018

AN ALL-KIWI RIVALRY

The rivalry between McLaughlin and van Gisbergen that defined Supercars racing for three seasons from 2018 was at its most fierce on home soil that season.

McLaughlin entered Pukekohe’s penultimate round just 14 points ahead of SVG. They waged a mighty war in the Saturday race; van Gisbergen bumping McLaughlin out of the lead and copping a five-second penalty for his troubles. The Red Bull ace responded by pulling a 5.5 second gap to win.

Even bigger drama followed as van Gisbergen pulled up in the post-race stop area so close to McLaughlin that the latter was unable to open his drivers’ door. Although van Gisbergen claimed it an innocent misjudgement, it was widely seen as a powerful statement of intimidation.

There was a war in the stewards’ room too as DJR Team Penske protested the result, citing a pitstop breach for car #97. After that was controversially dismissed on Sunday morning, McLaughlin shut out the distractions to win the Sunday race and take an ultimately unchanged 14-point lead to Newcastle.

2022

THE PUKEKOHE SEND-OFF

The heartbreaking news that Pukekohe was to close its doors to car racing left the Supercars Championship to return for one last blast in 2022, following a two-year COVID hiatus.

In the same way that his hero Murphy had put the venue on the Supercars map just over 20 years earlier, van Gisbergen ensured it signed off in style, recovering from a lowly eighth-placed qualifying effort to challenge Aussie Ford rival Cam Waters for victory in the closing stages of the finale.

Waters aggressively held his position, the two cars at one stage making contact through the high-speed final corners, but van Gisbergen would not be denied. He eventually cut through to the lead, won the race and secured the Jason Richards Trophy for the third time. Declaring it better than a Bathurst win, it sits right up there with van Gisbergen’s biggest Supercars achievements. ■

Main: Van Gisbergen thrilled the crowd with a nailbiting victory in the final Supercars race at Pukekohe in 2022, showing his delight with a trademark burnout on the front straight. Above: Waters, van Gisbergen and Heimgartner accept the cheers from the final Pukekohe podium.

Hamilton-raised Martin Short is closing in on his dream of winning a Supercars Championship after making the switch from driving to engineering, as STEFAN BARTHOLOMAEUS discovers.

The five Kiwi drivers in the Repco Supercars Championship field will grab the bulk of the attention for their on-track skill and daring at the ITM Taupō Super400. But walk into the paddock and you’ll discover a wave of unsung local heroes making their mark on the sport in various key roles.

Among them is Hamilton’s Martin

Short. The 33-year-old is now in his third season as race engineer to Broc Feeney at the Red Bull Ampol Racing Team. Short joined the Brisbanebased squad in 2018, working with Shane van Gisbergen as a data engineer before getting the chance to take the reins for Feeney, winning the

Broc Bull winning

Super2 Series together before graduating to the main show in 2022.

The race engineer plays a crucial role in any team. At an event, Short is tasked with interpreting Feeney’s feedback on how the car is performing on track. He must balance that with what the data from the car is telling him before instructing the mechanics on any set-up changes to make.

During a race there are strategic decisions to call and the need to manage the driver’s emotions via the pit-to-car radio. Such communications in the heat of battle are often broadcast on television. Once back at the workshop, every aspect of the weekend is meticulously analysed.

Four of the 24 race engineer positions are held by Kiwis. Two have this year formed partnerships with the only Supercars championship-winning drivers in the field: Raymond Lau has moved from Tickford Racing to the Blanchard Racing Team to work with James Courtney while Som Sharma has returned to Supercars after a stint in Germany to link with Mark

Winterbottom at Team 18.

The other Kiwi in the hot seat is veteran Paul Forgie, who engineers second-year driver Cam Hill at Matt Stone Racing. Originally from Dunedin, Forgie is best known for guiding Marcos Ambrose to back-to-back Supercars titles in 2003 and 2004 with the legendary Stone Brothers Racing. Although New Zealand drivers have won six out of the last eight Supercars championships, Forgie’s triumphs are the last for a Kiwi engineer. Twenty years on, Short is aiming to break the drought.

“AFTER THAT I RACED NEW ZEALAND V8S AGAINST SOME OF MY HEROES GROWING UP LIKE CRAIG BAIRD AND JOHN MCINTYRE. THAT WAS PRETTY COOL AS WELL. I GOT A FEW RACE WINS DOING THAT.”

It wasn’t always meant to be that way, though, as Short’s first goal was to conquer the sport as a driver. The son of racer and motorsport administrator Geoff Short,

Opposite top: Celebrating Feeney’s first Supercars win at Adelaide in 2022. Opposite botton: Martin Short. Above: Short aboard a TSR Racing Mygale at Winton in 2009, one of a handful of Australian Formula Ford appearances that he made. Below: Entering Turn 1 of the Hamilton Street Circuit in 2011, his first season in the NZV8 category.

whose time behind the wheel included a Bathurst 1000 start in the two-litre race in 1998, Martin grew up at the track and started his own driving career in karts at the age of seven. At 15, he tackled the Rotax Challenge World Finals in Portugal and finished fifth in his division – a result that gave confidence he had further to go in the sport.

“There were 64 drivers from 46 different countries, or something like that,” he recalls. “I was in Junior Max, and I was ready to move up to Seniors at the time, so I was about 15 kilos overweight and to come away with fifth I was really, really proud.”

The next step was a move into singleseaters via the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship. Short beat the now international Formula E star Nick Cassidy to the 2010-11 title before moving into New Zealand’s soon-to-be-fractured V8 racing scene.

“I did two and a half years of Formula Ford and worked really hard to win that title,” says Short. “After that I raced New Zealand V8s against some of my heroes growing up like Craig Baird and John McIntyre. That was pretty cool as well. I got a few race wins doing that.”

Short’s time in NZ V8s included racing on the Supercars support bill at the Hamilton 400 in 2012 and Pukekohe the following year. He campaigned a Falcon before stepping up to a Toyota Camry built to NZ V8’s new TLX rules, which failed to fire amid the debut of a rival series.

“I was racing when there was a split into two categories, the SuperTourers and then New Zealand V8s,” he says. “My dad was actually working for Motorsport (NZ) at the time and I stayed with New Zealand V8s and it kind of died when they bought out their new car. There wasn’t really anything in New Zealand that I wanted to do and the step to Australia was too much money for us.”

There were some brief on-track forays in Australian Formula Ford and Formula 3 along the way, but the budget would not stretch to a season in Supercars’ feeder series, Super2. Short therefore made the decision to restart engineering studies at the Auckland University of Technology that he’d paused to focus on racing. He graduated in 2017 and joined Triple Eight soon after, albeit hesitantly.

“When I finished uni, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do,” he says. “I had motorsport in the back of my mind,

but I had been working for a couple of different teams while I was studying at university in single-seaters and stuff like that and I did find it quite hard, I was missing the driving part. So, I actually got a job as a design engineer in Auckland for about two months.

“Then I saw this job (at Triple Eight) pop up online. I thought, ‘I guess if I was going to do the whole motorsport thing with anyone, it’d be with Triple Eight’. They were the best team at the time and Shane, who was a hero of mine, being a Kiwi, was driving for them. I thought that if I didn’t go for it, I’d probably look back in 10 years’ time and regret it.

“I wasn’t sure how I’d go and how I’d enjoy it and if I really still wanted to be involved in motorsport, but as soon as I started, I really enjoyed the whole team aspect. I was getting the highs and thrills of winning and losing, and I think because it’s such a professional level, it didn’t make me feel like I was missing the driving as much. It kind of reset a spark in my motorsport passion. I’m very glad I did it.”

That’s not to say Short is done with driving completely. His time at Triple Eight has included racing one of its Hyundai Excels at Townsville in 2020, driving a

Above: Short in discussions with Triple Eight team principal Jamie Whincup and driver Broc Feeney. Opposite top: Brad Tremain, Erebus team principal. Opposite below: Kate Harrington, Blanchard Racing Team team manager.

Almost every Supercars team has a Kiwi in a prominent role, whether it’s a driver, engineer, crew chief or team manager, each having trodden their own path across the Tasman.

Take champion squad Erebus Motorsport and its team principal Brad Tremain as an example. Originally from Tokoroa in the Waikato region, Tremain’s passion for cars led him to taking up an automotive trade in his homeland, before making the move to Australia in 2016 for the role of number two mechanic on David Reynolds’ Erebus Motorsport Commodore.

At that time Erebus was undergoing a complete rebuild following a relocation from the Gold Coast to Melbourne and only a handful of its recruits had any Supercars experience. The hard-working Tremain subsequently rose to number one mechanic, then chief mechanic and crew chief, tasting double championship success in that role last year before being promoted to team principal.

Not all career progressions are quite as linear or even borne out of a life-long automotive passion. Kate Harington has this year become the first female team manager in Supercars Championship history, leading the Blanchard Racing Team. At 28 years old, she’s also the youngest.

“Originally I actually never had an interest in motorsport,” she says. “I went to university (in Otago) and studied law and aviation. I was going to become a lawyer or an air traffic controller, then Tony Quinn took me under his wing. He’s been a great mentor for me.”

Harrington began working for Quinn at his Highlands Motorsport Park near Cromwell, looking after the circuit’s customer experience programs. She then moved to Australia to be category manager for the Quinn-owned Australian GT Championship before a year running the Radical Cup and then a move into Supercars with Tickford Racing, heading up its Super2 program.

The roll call of Kiwis holding prominent positions in Supercars squads includes team owner Matt Stone and his legendary father Jimmy, Walkinshaw Andretti United CEO Bruce Stewart, Team 18 team manager Dennis Huijser and Brad Jones Racing chief mechanic Sam Cosgrove.

Then there are those who work for Supercars itself, such as data and programming engineer Bea Vear, motorsport department stalwart Tony Bowker and the unofficial sixth Kiwi driver in the 2024 field, Jason Routley, who steers Supercars’ flash new electric Porsche Safety Car.

Martin Short’s advice to any young compatriots wanting to get into Supercars, especially in engineering, is to get the right education and as much experience as possible.

“Just try and get involved in grassroots to start with,” he says. “It’s really awesome to get involved and be part of a team and kind of know what you’re in for. If engineering is what you want to do, most teams are looking for a degree and I was lucky to get a job straight out of uni.

“It’s worth trying to get experience within a Supercars team in any position. A couple of people at Triple Eight started as van delivery drivers and things like that and are now engineers. You can get in at a lower level and work your way up.” ■

Commodore ZB during aerodynamic testing and piloting one of its Gen3 Camaros on a chassis dyno. He’s also had a race outing at Taupō in recent years, driving an Audi GT3 owned by his father, and is keen for more opportunities.

All this begs the question, does Short’s experience behind the wheel give him a leg-up over other race engineers in the Supercars paddock?

“It just makes me understand a little bit more of what the driver’s going through, what they need,” he says. “Sometimes the science and the data is only one part. I feel like sometimes you can over-analyse things, with so many sensors in the cars and everything.

“At the end of the day the driver is basically the most expensive sensor in the car, so you’ve got to trust what they’re saying and what they’re feeling and sometimes the data might look different to what that says, but you’ve got take both into consideration. That knowledge is a good asset.”

Short is also hopeful that his Taupō track knowledge will come in handy when Supercars hits town. Triple Eight is a team that prides itself on hitting the ground running at new venues, with meticulous preparation the key. Before the circus arrives in race week, the team will have

“THE DRIVER IS BASICALLY THE MOST EXPENSIVE SENSOR IN THE CAR, SO YOU’VE GOT TO TRUST WHAT THEY’RE SAYING…”

sent a crew – including Short, fellow race engineer Andrew Edwards and its two drivers – to scout out the circuit.

“It’s going to be a pretty hard track on tyres,” Short notes. “It’s quite twisty and narrow as well, so passing it’s going be very hard and I think the track position is going

to be definitely key there.

“For a setup, I’ve got to bring some experience from kind of characterising the circuit with what we have in Australia and then try and figure out what we can kind of adapt to Taupo. I think it’s going to be a hard one for everyone because it is quite a different track to what we race in Australia, but rolling out with a fast car is going to be pretty critical.”

Although winning the championship is the ultimate aim this year, taking victory on Kiwi soil would be extra special for Short. Just like the current crop of Kiwi Supercars drivers, he grew up heading to Pukekohe each year to cheer on his heroes and nowadays enjoys the support of friends and family, who’ll make the trek to Taupō from nearby Hamilton.

Then there’s the prospect of taking home the Jason Richards Trophy.

“Jason Richards was a huge idol of mine,” Short says. “When I was a kid, he was racing against dad (in the New Zealand Touring Car Championship for two-litre machines) and Jason used to beat him quite a lot, so he was a bit of an enemy!

“But Jason was a lot younger than my dad as well, and when he made it to Supercars, it was pretty awesome to follow him. He was a friendly guy; he would always make time to talk. Winning that trophy would be very special.” ■

Feeney and Short have had plenty to smile about so far in 2024.

Feeney won the opening race of the 2024 season at Bathurst.

Paul Morris goes for a wild ride at Pukekohe in 2007. This rollover was the result of a clash with long-time sparring partner Brad Jones through the circuit’s high-speed and undulating final complex of corners. Both drivers walked away unscathed.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Dirk Klynsmith, AN1 Images

New Zealand drivers have been the benchmark in Supercars for much of the past decade, but it wasn’t always so. It took a long time for a Kiwi to claim any silverware across the Tasman but, as WILL DALE explains, the one that did proved to be one of the best racers in the sport’s history…

It’s incredible to think it took so long for a New Zealand driver to conquer Australia’s top touring car class. The country has produced no shortage of elite sedan racers, dating back to the 1960s. Stars like Paul Fahey, Robbie Francevic, Rod Coppins and Red Dawson regularly showed visiting Australians the way around whenever they came over for saloon car races during the summer months.

A host of top Kiwi talent crossed the Tasman to take a dip at the Bathurst 500/1000, in which Jim Palmer became the first New Zealander to score a top-three finish in 1968 – but that race wasn’t a part of the championship until 1999. Meanwhile, drivers such as Coppins, Leonard and open-wheel star Graeme Lawrence made a handful of ATCC starts across the 1960s and ‘70s, but they were unable to break through for a victory.

Part of the reason was the ‘closed-shop’ nature of Australian touring car racing at the time. The well-funded factory teams from Holden and Ford had the wherewithal to build the best cars suited to the championship’s unique modifiedproduction ‘Group C’ ruleset.

That ended with the introduction of international Group A touring car rules for 1985, which blew up the Ford/Holden stranglehold on the championship and allowed other marques a look-in – in particular, those which had already been successful in Group A competition in Europe.

Not only did the first race of the new era produce a New Zealand winner, the first season ended with one of the country’s greatest touring car drivers being crowned as champion. That man was Jim Richards. By 1985, Richards had endured his own long road to sustained success.

He’d gone from making his racing debut aboard a self-built Ford Anglia to winning the New Zealand Saloon Car Championship aboard the iconic Sidchrome Mustang in just a handful of years, and had proven himself to be a frontrunner at whatever he put his backside into. His versatility netted trophies on the tar in big cars, small cars and production cars, onto the dirt stages in rallying, and in speedway races in Auckland and Christchurch.

But the New Zealand scene lacked mainstream attention, which meant little return for sponsors and no way of becoming a truly professional driver.

“At that stage, you couldn’t make a living out of racing in New Zealand, no way,” Richards reflected in 2022 for Gentleman Jim, the authorised biography of his career. “First place prize money was something like $250 if you won a

Richards on his way to a comfortable victory at Winton.

championship race; for a normal race, you did it for fun! There was no TV coverage either, so why would a sponsor give you a few thousand dollars to drive your car around when hardly anyone was watching?”

Sidchrome pulled its support of the Mustang at the end of the 1974/75 season, but Richards hatched a plan to bring the machine to Aussie and race it in the lucrative Sports Sedan category. Early success against the locals meant the quietly-spoken Kiwi became a drawcard for race promoters. From winning, at most, $250 for big races in New Zealand, Richards was soon being offered thousands of dollars just to compete!

The original plan was for Richards to dart back and forth across the Tasman but, soon enough, Richards was on the phone to wife Fay, who’d stayed at home with their three young children.

“I said: ‘Gee whiz, we could probably almost make a living out of driving over here. I think we should give it a go for a year and see what happens.’”

His success in the Mustang against highly-rated drivers like Allan Moffat, Ian Geoghegan and Allan Grice drew the attention of the touring car community – not for a full-time seat, mind, but as a co-driver for the big endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst.

Richards’ first taste of Australian touring car racing netted a podium finish alongside Coppins aboard a Kiwi-run Holden Torana at the 1974 Bathurst 1000, but his first solo start came a couple of years later aboard John Goss’s Ford Falcon, driving it solo at the Sandown 400 while its owner raced and won the Australian Grand Prix on the same day.

An attempt to run his own touring car foundered when a prominent Melbourne

“AT THAT STAGE, YOU COULDN’T MAKE A LIVING OUT OF RACING IN NEW ZEALAND, NO WAY.”

Richards’ first ATCC race win was far from his last.

Ford dealership pulled its funding after a management change, but their loss was the Holden Dealer Team’s gain. The factory Holden squad recruited Richards to co-drive with Peter Brock, and the pair combined to sweep the next three Bathurst 1000 victories.

But a fade in Sports Sedan racing meant Richards still had precious little racing on his plate otherwise, certainly not enough to sustain a professional career. Indeed, his day job consisted of running a Bob Jane T-Marts tyre outlet.

“I was going to semi ... not ‘retire’, because I had a drive with Brocky at Bathurst for probably as long as I wanted it, but I would definitely have wound racing back otherwise,” Richards says.

Instead, he was given an offer that was

“WHAT’S THE STORY, WE HEAR FRANK GARDNER IS SETTING UP HIS OWN BMW TEAM AND YOU’RE GOING TO DRIVE THE CAR…”

too good to refuse.

BMW had entered Australian touring car racing at the end of 1981, but the year ended in an ugly split between Allan Grice and Frank Gardner, resulting in the latter starting a new BMW Australiaowned squad for 1982. Richards had raced against Gardner in Sports Sedans and was immediately linked with the vacant seat.

“Journos were ringing me up saying ‘what’s the story, we hear Frank Gardner is setting up his own BMW team and you’re going to drive the car.’ I had absolutely no idea and had never heard from Frank,”

Richards laughs.

“In the end, I got his number and rang him to ask what was happening. He said: ‘Young fella, if that was to happen and I was setting up a team and I was looking for a driver, you’d definitely be on my list’ – and he left it at that.”

The call finally came months later, and suddenly Richards was a full-time touring car driver. However, the Group C version of the BMW 635CSi was not a match for the dominant Holden Commodores, Ford Falcons and Mazda RX-7s, while Nissan were rapidly making inroads with its

turbocharged Bluebird.

But the 635 was a proven winner in Group A in Europe, and Richards was in the pound seats for the 1985 season.

The raw numbers tell the story. Richards won the opening race of the 1985 season at Winton by over a lap from his teammate, racer and car industry titan Neville Crichton – coincidentally giving New Zealand its first race win and first 1-2 in one fell swoop.

He dipped out to Brock in the next round at Sandown and then to fellow Kiwi Francevic, tackling the championship in a turbocharged Volvo 240T, but then Richards won the next six rounds in a row. The consecutive triumphs set a record that was never matched and can’t be beaten, with Supercars shifting focus from rounds to races from 2009.

“There wasn’t any secret to it,” Richards says of the streak. “Every time I drove the car it was a bit nicer and a bit better,

THE FIRST KIWI IN THE ATCC

Only in recent years has AN1 Data, the custodian of ATCC/Supercars history, been able to pinpoint the championship’s first New Zealand driver.

The Repco Supercars Championship grew from the Australian Touring Car Championship, which was awarded to the winner of a single race from 1960 to 1968. Some of those standalone ATCC races were given minimal coverage, even by specialist press.

It was at the fourth ATCC, held at Mallala in 1963, at which a Kiwi driver first graced the grid. Nigel Roskilly was living in Adelaide when the ATCC came to town, having emigrated in 1960 as a 20-year-old.

“My mum thinks it was because he had lost his licence in New Zealand,” his son Lance explains. “No doubt for hooning around the streets of Auckland’s North Shore!

“He got work with American Assurance as a doorto-door insurance salesman in northern New South Wales. He got stuck in the Lismore floods in 1962 and ended up being billetted at my mother’s house; they fell in love, got married and moved to Adelaide.

“His passion was always cars and racing and despite having an Austin A90 Westminster, thought nothing of entering it in anything at Mallala.”

The 1963 ATCC clashed with Bathurst’s Easter meeting so, beyond the basic narrative of Bob Jane’s seven-second win over Ern Abbott, little was reported about most of the 29-car field – including Roskilly’s #64 Austin A90, which retired after just three laps. It was Roskilly’s only ATCC appearance; he and his growing family moved back across the Tasman in 1965. He continued racing in his homeland, and later was a regular flag marshal at Pukekohe and a

stalwart of the classic racing community.

“He ended up owning a workshop called the Classic Car Stable that specialised in the sale and maintenance of anything old, English and of classic pedigree – mainly pre 1970 Jaguars and Daimlers, Alvis, Bentley, and Rolls Royces,” Lance adds.

Sadly, Roskilly passed away in 2012, but history will record him as the first New Zealander to race in the championship. ■

Left: Richards makes a fast start from the second row of the second round at Sandown – a rarity, given the BMW’s single-plate clutch wasn’t homologated with standing starts in mind.

Right: Seven’s Garry Wilkinson interviews Richards after his Winton victory.

but that was only from Frank’s fiddling around with it. It was just the fact that the team did a good job and I suppose I drove pretty good. As far as I was concerned, we could’ve been coming third, fourth or fifth, but I was going as fast as I could go and we happened to be winning!”

The final victory also confirmed Richards as the 1985 champion, enshrining him as the first New Zealander to win both a race and a title. Kiwis went on to win five of the next seven championships, with Francevic taking out the 1986 title before Richards claimed his second in 1987 aboard BMW’s mighty little M3. He then switched to Nissan and adding two more crowns in 1990 and 1991 thanks to the Skyline GTS-R and the monstrous, four-wheeldrive GT-R that succeeded it.

Above: Richards finished Sandown a few carlengths behind race-winner Peter Brock. Below: Battling old Kiwi rival Robbie Francevic at Calder. Bottom: Francevic leads Colin Bond and Richards at Amaroo Park.

While his full-time touring car career ended in 1995, Richards continued to co-drive all the way up until 2006, highlighted by a seventh win in the Bathurst 1000 alongside Mark Skaife in 2002, then qualifying third in the Top 10 Shootout the following year at age 56.

By that point, the Supercars grid was awash with New Zealand talent. From two-time World Cup winner Paul Radisich to the likes of Greg Murphy and Craig Baird, as well as Jim’s own son Steven, who added five Bathurst triumphs to the Richards family record amid a successful touring car career in his own right.

A new wave came with the arrival of a teenage Shane van Gisbergen in 2007, followed in 2013 by Scott McLaughlin’s graduation from the Development Series to the main championship. The pair led the Kiwi charge for the remainder of the decade, claiming six out of the seven championships awarded from 2016 to 2022.

But their path towards glory was carved by Richards, who stands tall as not just the sport’s first New Zealand-born champion, but also as its most modest.

“I raced because I enjoyed it; I loved driving a car as fast as I could,” Richards explains. “Don’t get me wrong, everyone likes to win and I’m no different, but I wasn’t results driven. I was just lucky enough to win more often than not. I’ve always said that competing is what you do, and winning is the bonus of competing.” ■

Above: Richards let his driving do his talking. Below: Richards won the 1987 title.

There’s a range of special awards and trophies on the line every year in Supercars racing but, as AARON NOONAN reports, there’s one in New Zealand that has very special meaning …

The return of the Repco Supercars Championship to New Zealand for this year’s ITM Taupō Super400 is a welcome one for many reasons, including the return of a special trophy.

The Jason Richards Memorial Trophy was created in 2013 in honour of the

Kiwi Supercars racer who lost his life in December 2011 due to a rare and aggressive cancer. Universally respected by his peers and colleagues, Richards’ passing at age 35 devastated the sport on both sides of the Tasman Sea. Richards had been a member of the

Supercars community since 2000, arriving as part of a Team Kiwi Racing outfit that tackled that year’s Bathurst 1000. He remained with TKR until the end of 2002, before stints at Team Dynamik, Tasman Motorsport and Brad Jones Racing; the Albury-based Aussie team at which he made a happy racing home for his last few years from 2009 onwards.

Richards became a popular part of the pitlane, a cheery disposition coupled with electrifying speed on the track making him a powerful package of energy and enthusiasm. From Nelson in New Zealand, Richards was posthumously inducted into the Supercars Hall of Fame in the same year, 2013, the trophy in his honour was created.

The special one-off trophy was completed by renowned artist Frank Watson of Ardmore in Auckland, a specialist in creating intricate and unique sculptures using glass, bronze and silver. The trophy is a two-side glass sculpture with black onyx centrepiece and stainlesssteel archers depicting the fern, set into a native timber base.

“While Jason raced mostly in Australia,

there was no more proud New Zealander,” his wife Charlotte said upon the trophy’s unveiling. “We miss Jason every day. No one worked harder to succeed but Jason did this with a smile on his face, always. I hope this trophy not only recognises what he achieved in the sport and how he went about it but also inspires other young

Kiwis that with big dreams and hard work, you can achieve anything.”

Rather than being awarded for a specific race win, the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy is handed to the driver with the most points across the entire weekend at the New Zealand round of the Repco Supercars Championship.

Opposite inset: The Jason Richards Memorial Trophy. Opposite main: Bright was the inaugural winner and was presented the trophy by the late Richards’ wife Charlotte and daughter Sienna. Above: Richards takes the chequered flag in seventh in the Saturday race at Pukekohe in 2007. Below: Winterbottom claimed the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy in 2014.

This year’s round in Taupō features a pair of 200-kilometre races with 150 championship points to the winner of each race. The driver who top-scores across these races will add their name to the impressive list of drivers to have won the trophy in the past.

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic meant there was no round in New Zealand in 2020 and 2021 and the closure of Pukekohe meant there was no time for a replacement venue to be sourced to be included on the 2023 calendar. Therefore, the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy has only been awarded once in the last four years.

Of the eight times it’s previously been awarded (2013-2019 and 2022), the trophy has been won by Kiwi drivers on four occasions. Now-NASCAR ace Shane van Gisbergen has won it more than anyone with three wins (with TEKNO Autosports in 2016 and with Triple Eight in 2019 and 2022), while now-INDYCAR

ace Scott McLaughlin won it in 2018 for DJR Team Penske.

Richards’ former Tasman Motorsport teammate – and now Red Bull Ampol Racing team principal – Jamie Whincup is the only Aussie to win it on multiple occasions (in 2015 and 2017), with single wins to Jason Bright (2013) and Mark Winterbottom (2014), the latter being the only JR Trophy winner in the 2024 field.

Richards’ former Brad Jones Racing teammate and friend Bright was an appropriate winner of the trophy in its year of inauguration, topping the points for the weekend at Pukekohe in 2013 in a round that marked the return of Supercars to its original Kiwi home for the first time since 2007.

“UNIVERSALLY RESPECTED BY HIS PEERS AND COLLEAGUES, RICHARDS’ PASSING AT AGE 35 DEVASTATED THE SPORT ON BOTH SIDES OF THE TASMAN SEA.”

JASON RICHARDS MEMORIAL TROPHY WINNERS

Above: McLaughlin received the trophy from Richards’ parents, Pauline and Dave, in 2018. Opposite: Van Gisbergen and race engineer Andrew Edwards celebrate winning the final Jason Richards Memorial Trophy to be awarded at Pukekohe.

There were plenty of tears in the pitlane when Bright was presented the ‘JR Trophy’ by Jason’s wife Charlotte, though his initial podium celebration was blunted for a moment when he leapt for joy on the podium with arms outstretched and promptly knocked the lights down!

Bright explained in the aftermath: “I got a message from Charlotte during the week passed on from Sienna (Richards’ daughter) saying that she wanted to present the trophy to me this weekend –talk about putting the pressure on!

“I think it sums it up. Car #8 wanted to win this race; the whole team wanted to take that trophy back to Albury. I was awake last night thinking about it. All I thought about this weekend and all the team thought about was that trophy, so it’s very special.”

Brad Jones Racing’s four-car Camaro line-up now includes two Kiwi drivers, Andre Heimgartner and Jaxon Evans, the former driving the #8 entry that Richards raced. Ever since Richards’ passing, all BJR cars carry a ‘JR Star’ logo, ensuring the Kiwi’s legacy lives on in every Supercars race.

“He was cut short in his prime,” says Brad Jones.

“When someone passes, how they’re honoured is very important. When we were looking at putting the star on the car, I didn’t want that to be something that we did after he passed. I remember telling him about it at one stage – my reason was that I thought it would be nice that he knew that he’ll always, no matter what, be a part of what we have here.

“It’s on the driver’s door so they look at it every time they get into the car. His star will always be on my cars.” ■

PAYING TRIBUTE

The Jason Richards Memorial Trophy follows in the wheel tracks of another trophy honouring another dearly missed Kiwi member of the Supercars family in Mark Porter.

Porter lost his life in an accident at Bathurst in the Fujitsu Series (now Super2) in 2006 and, in his honour, the Mark Porter Trophy was inaugurated.

It was first awarded in 2008 when the New Zealand round of the championship moved to the streets of Hamilton, Porter’s hometown, and was awarded to the top point scoring driver of the weekend through to the final round there in 2012.

The trophy, created by Raglan artist Tai Meuli, who spent more than four months and 600 hours carving it from pounamu, was won by Garth Tander (2008), Jamie Whincup (2009 and 2010), Shane van Gisbergen (2011) and Mark Winterbottom (2012).

It will forever remain a special trophy in Supercars racing history.

THE 2024 ITM Taupō Super400 marks the 21st time the Repco Supercars Championship has visited New Zealand. Recognised here are all pole positions, race wins, podium finishes and starts achieved in NZ, either at Pukekohe (2001-07 and 2013-22) or Hamilton (2008-12).

RACE WINS BY DRIVER

Main: Winterbottom celebrates winning the final race at the Hamilton Street Circuit in 2012. Above: McLaughlin took his maiden Supercars Championship race win at Pukekohe in 2013.

Jamie Whincup Triple Eight

Shane van Gisbergen Stone Brothers

Davison

Mark

Jamie Whincup

Will Davison Ford Performance Racing

Jason Bright Brad Jones Racing Holden Commodore

2014 Jason Bright Brad Jones Racing Holden Commodore

Mark Winterbottom Ford Performance Racing

Shane van Gisbergen Tekno Autosports

Mark Winterbottom Ford Performance Racing

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2022

Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering

David Reynolds Rod Nash Racing

Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering

Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering

Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering

Mark Winterbottom Prodrive Racing Australia

Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering

Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering

Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering

Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering

Scott McLaughlin DJR Team Penske

Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering

Scott McLaughlin DJR Team Penske

Will Davison Dick Johnson Racing

Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering

Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering

Holden Commodore VF

Holden Commodore VF

Ford Falcon FG X

Holden Commodore VF

Holden Commodore VF

Holden Commodore VF

Holden Commodore ZB

Ford Falcon FG X

Holden Commodore ZB

Ford Mustang GT

Ford Mustang GT

Holden Commodore ZB

Holden Commodore ZB

Shane van Gisbergen, 2011

Will

Fabian Coulthard

Jamie Whincup

Steven Richards, 2008

The battle lines have been drawn ahead of Carrera Cup Australia’s maiden appearance on New Zealand shores at Taupō Motorsport Park.

Albert Park’s opening round in lateMarch was a spicy affair in which returning young gun Harri Jones and fiery veteran Dale Wood locked horns.

Jones, the 2022 Carrera Cup Australia champion, is back for another full-time tilt after spreading his wings last year with starts in Porsche’s flagship Supercup, domestic series in Germany and the Middle East, and an assault on the final two rounds of his local competition.

That puts him directly in the way of former Supercars driver and Carrera Cup veteran Wood’s burning ambition to finally break-through for his first Carrera Cup Australia crown.

The 24-year-old Jones had the upperhand for the bulk of the weekend in Melbourne, winning the opening race from pole position. Wood, 40, won the jump in the second before Jones wrestled back the ascendancy to make it two wins from as many starts.

But the most drama was saved for the finale, where the pattern of Wood taking the early lead before being overhauled

by Jones was repeated. This time there was a twist as an attempted fightback by Wood led to contact that knocked Jones off-track, earning Wood a penalty and allowing Marcos Flack to sweep through to victory in just his sixth-ever start.

Post-race, there was a confrontation between Jones and Wood for which the former was subsequently fined $10,000, having been deemed to have breached the category’s Code of Conduct.

The battle will be on again at Taupō, where a host of other young stars including Ryder Quinn, Bayley Hall and Jackson Walls will hope to make an impression on the podium.

There’s plenty of Kiwi flavour too. Former Supercars race winner Fabian Coulthard and reigning Sprint Challenge Australia winner Marco Giltrap are flying the New Zealand flag full-time in the series, with the former determined to make up for a troubled start in Melbourne.

Four Kiwi wildcards will join the grid at Taupō, where local team International Motorsport is set to field Sam Fillmore, Rick Armstrong, Luke Manson and Matt

Whittaker. According to Porsche Cars Australia motorsport manager Barry Hay, the wildcards are an exciting part of the historic first outing for Carrera Cup Australia in NZ.

“The beauty of one-make Porsche competition is that you can drive the same car in Australia as anywhere in the world, so with the number of Porsche 992 GT3 Cup Cars in New Zealand it made sense to throw the grid open to a select group of locals,” he said.

“Some of us Aussies hate to admit it, but Carrera Cup Australia has an incredible record of New Zealand success with people like Jim Richards, Fabian Coulthard, Craig Baird and lately, Callum Hedge, coming over and beating the locals! It will add to the trans-Tasman flavour of the event and add to the local interest in our NZ debut.”

Hay isn’t overstating the past success of Kiwis in Carrera Cup Australia. Ten of the 18 titles contested since the series began in 2003 have been won by Kiwis; Baird a five-time title-holder and Jim Richards, Steven Richards, Coulthard, Jaxon Evans and Hedge having scored one apiece. ■

CARRERA CUP AUSTRALIA

The diverse and spectacular NAPA Central Muscle Car class adds yet more horsepower to the ITM Taupō Super400.

If muscle cars are your thing, look no further than the spectacular array of machinery in the NAPA Central Muscle Car series.

The category was formed in 2003 by a group of like-minded enthusiasts who wanted to create a class catering to classic competition muscle cars. Central Muscle Cars grew quickly, as many other competitors who shared the same passion for thundering, power-sliding Australian and American muscle cars came on board and the fan base also grew rapidly.

Central Muscle Cars caters to production vehicles manufactured from 1958-1978, of which a minimum 1000 identical units must have been produced in a 12-month period, to be eligible. There are two classes, Group 1 and Group 2, and the driver must own the car to be able to compete in the series.

Group 1 allows many more freedoms to the competitor, including wheel sizes up to 17-inch x 11-inch, plus the use of composite panels and a deep front spoiler. Brakes are limited to six-pot front, and four-pot rear. A Group 1B sub-class also exists with the same technical rules, but differentiated by lap times to create a second tier of Group 1 cars.

Group 2 features more technical restrictions, aimed at the purist who prefers their car remain closer to its standard form. They are limited to a maximum 17-inch x 9-inch wheels, and must run original bodywork panels and a maximum four-pot brakes.

Taupō marks the sixth and penultimate round of the 2023-24 season. Round 5 was also held at Taupō and featured race wins for Andy Knight, Tony Galbraith and Shane Holland, who took two of the four victories aboard his Ford Mustang. ■

NAPA CENTRAL MUSCLE CARS

DRIVER

Andy Knight

CITY/TOWN CAR

Christchurch Pontiac

Nick Ross Cambridge Dodge

Andrew Anderson

Nathan Anderson

Whenuapai Falcon

Whenuapai Mustang

James Broadbridge Wellington Camaro

Tony Guise

Rodney Heads

Shane Johnson

Bruce Kett

Tauranga Falcon

Tauranga Torana

Auckland Mustang

Rodney Camaro

Kayton Goughey Rodney Holden

Gavin McLaughlin

Barrie Richards

Shane Holland

Tristan Teki

Steve Scoles

Wellington Holden

Tauranga Holden

Horitiu Mustang

Taranaki Camaro

Cromwell Camaro

Steve Noyer Auckland Mustang

Opposite: Barrie Richards’ Holden leads Bruce Kett’s recreation of the iconic Cambridge Camaro. Above: Andy Knight’s Camaro heads Craig Boote’s Mustang and the rest of the field off the start at Ruapuna last October. Below: Knight trails Shane Holland in the wet at Manfeild last December.

TOYOTA GAZOO RACING 86 SERIES

A field of young guns will battle it out for honours in the hotlycontested Toyota 86 Championship.

The Toyota class returns to a track it knows well as a major support category at the ITM Taupō Super400. This will be the final round of a six-round championship which almost always takes the battle for the title to the last round, and more often than not the very last race of 18 during the season.

At the time of writing the 2023-2024 battle had evolved into a fierce contest between Hunter Robb, Tom Bewley and William Exton. Their pace and championship positions are only a whisker ahead of a chasing pack including Jackson Rooney, veteran John Penny and long-time series competitor Justin Allen.

Others showing pace have been Cormac Murphy – son of Supercars great Greg Murphy – Hayden Bakkerus, Harry Townshend and out of Australia, Lockie Bloxsom and Alice Buckley.

Young gun Brooklyn Horan was another ready for the top step of the podium but was tragically lost in a Rallysprint accident in February, casting a season-long cloud over the tight-knit Toyota 86 community.

For the final weekend in this season’s championship the field is joined by rising star Ben Stewart, who has impressed in every category of racing car in which he has competed.

With a field of 20-plus cars all generally covered by less than a second and a half from first to last, tight racing is guaranteed and you may well end up watching Supercars stars of the future.

Former competitors include a rookie sensation in this year’s Repco Supercars Championship, Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Ryan Wood, and Tickford Racing young gun Rylan Gray, who is this year contesting the Super2 Series with the Australian squad. ■

Above: Callum Hedge heads Christina Orr-West at Pukekohe in 2022, the last time the Toyota 86 Championship supported the Supercars Championship. Below: Tom Bewley fights off Hunter Robb on his way to victory at Highlands earlier this year.

For over 50 years the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship has proved a vital stepping stone for young drivers looking to make their way up the racing ladder.

Van Gisbergen. Heimgartner. Stanaway. Coulthard. Lawson. Dixon. Baird.

The careers of these Kiwis have spanned everything from Supercars to IndyCar, NASCAR, British Touring Cars, Carrera Cup, GP2 and beyond. But they have all shared a common achievement; winning the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship.

It proves the adage that if you can win in a Formula Ford, you can win in anything. There’s something about the simplicity of the package – namely a basic spaceframe chassis, 1600cc Kent engine, stick-shift transmission, skinny tyres and a complete lack of aerodynamic wings – that has made Formula Ford the perfect talent breeding ground for over half a century.

A new name will be added to the illustrious list of champions at the ITM Taupō Super400, which marks the final round of the 2023-24 NAPA Auto Parts New Zealand Formula Ford Championship.

The latest wave of talent fighting out the series this year includes Prebbleton teenagers Will Neale (Van Diemen Stealth) and Blake Knowles (Van Diemen RF05), and Auckland’s Seb Manson (Spectrum 015).

The find of the series has been Christchurch’s Izaak Fletcher (RAE GR20), who sits fourth outright and leads the rookie standings. Others to watch include Caleb Byers (RAE GR21), who made a huge improvement for R2, current North Island Formula Ford Champ Dylan Grant

(Van Diemen RF03) and Auckland’s Mason Potter (Spectrum 015).

Honours in Class 2 – for older machinery – are being fought out between Cameron Freeman (Van Diemen RF92) from Dunedin, Cameron Tanner (Van Diemen RF91) of Christchurch and Jacob Cunniffe (Swift 1996). Look out too for 1995 NZ Formula Ford Champion and two-time NZ Trans Am champion Shane Drake as the 54-year-old mixes it with his younger rivals.

The Taupō round doubles as the final of the NAPA Auto Parts New Zealand Formula Ford Championship and the Giltrap Group North Island Formula Ford Series and is supported by the Tony Quinn Foundation, Yokohama Tyres, Hampton Downs NZ Racing Academy and Ford. ■

OFFICIALS OF THE EVENT

NATIONAL SPORTING AUTHORITY

Motorsport New Zealand Inc

PROMOTER

Supercars Australia Pty Ltd

ORGANISER

Supercars Australia Pty Ltd

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Phil Shaw, Gary Lathrope, Rachael Murray, Craig Finlayson, Shanelle Barrett

SUPERCARS OFFICIALS

VCS STEWARDS

Chris McMahon (Chair), Brad Tubb, Wayne Scott

VCS RACE DIRECTOR

James Taylor

VCS DEPUTY RACE DIRECTOR

David Mori

CLERK OF THE COURSE

Craig Finlayson

SECRETARY OF THE EVENT

Gary Lathrope, Rachael Murray

MEDICAL DELEGATE

Dr Carl Le

HEAD OF MOTORSPORT

Tim Edwards

STARTER

James Delzoppo

VOLUNTEERS

Rob Andrews

Karl Askew

Debra Atkinson

Gregory Avison

Ian Barlow

Ben Bettridge

Mike Black

Adrian Bond

Gavin Bowater

Kylie Bowater

Margrett Brensalll

Laurie Brenssell

Ian Campbell

Stacey Campbell

Stephen Christini

Garioch Clunie

Gilbert Corin

Murray Crane

Donald Crawford

Richard Crawford

Darren Dempsey

Jasmine Dheda

Vijay Dheda

Peter Drew

Maree Ellis

Peter Ellis

Stuart Falconer

Paul Fallon

Don Fenwick

Craig Finlayson

Alex Foster

DRIVING STANDARDS ADVISOR

Craig Baird

TIMING CO-ORDINATOR

Ian Leech, Tiffany Leech

RECOVERY CO-ORDINATOR

Alistair Walker

MEDIA MANAGER

Paul Glover

SUPPORT EVENT OFFICIALS

DEPUTY CLERK OF THE COURSE

Adam Simmons

ASSISTANT CLERK OF THE COURSE

Gary Haar, Peter Woodward, Malcolm Clunie, Gary Lathrope

SUPPORT CATEGORY STEWARDS

Janet Phipps (Chair), Maurice Thomson, Don Fenwick

EMERGENCY COORDINATOR

Adam Simmons

CHIEF COMMUNICATOR

Phil Newton

CHIEF OBSERVER

Peter Ellis

CHIEF TIMEKEEPER

Jacky Braid

COURSE CAR DRIVER

Paul Roberts

SUPPORT SAFETY CAR DRIVER

Brian Hamilton

Sam Frickleton

Cheyenne Galway-Quinn

Gail Garlick

Malcolm Glenn

George Godfrey

Murray Graham

Brendon Green

Kelly Green

Les Green

Lorraine Green

Devan Gregory

Gary Haar

Brian Hamilton

Judy Hamilton

Sean Hammond

Jason Harris

Clara Harrison

Vince Holub

Darryl Jackson

Jodez Jackson

Tim Jackson

Trevor Jackson

Becky James

Hailey Jenner

Manu Jensen

Hokimoana Jerry

Waverley Jones

Kathy Lane

Peter Lane

Gary Lathrope

Belinda Linton

Alana McIsaac

Hunter McLean

Darryl McManus

Ron Mcmillan

Wendy Metcalfe

Rachael Murray

Chewie Newton

Colin Nyhane

Craig Olive

Trish Olliver

Cliff Ormiston

Joel Patterson

Ben Perkins

Craig Perkins

Janet Phipps

Donald Platt

Steve Plester

Jayne Reed

Michele Reid

Sandra Reihana

Bruce Riley

Graham Robertson

Stuart Rose

Justic Scelly

Jason Schutt

Cherie Scott

Jessica Shand

Adam Simmons

Hendrikus Staal

Alistair Steele

Katherine Stent

SUPPORT SAFETY CAR OBSERVER

Judy Hamilton

CHIEF STARTER

Alex Foster

ASSISTANT STARTER

Craig Olive

CHIEF SCRUTINEERS

John Wigston, Gavin Boyne

CHIEF MARSHAL

Vince Holub

DEPUTY CHIEF MARSHAL

Vijay Dheda

CHIEF OF RECOVERY

Ryan Turner

DEPUTY CHIEF OF RECOVERY

Peter Elliot

CHIEF FIRE MARSHAL

Malcom Clunie

DEPUTY CHIEF FIRE MARSHAL

Dean Wills

CHIEF PIT LANE & GRID MARSHAL

Richard Ward & Greg Avison

DEPUTY CHIEF PIT LANE & GRID MARSHAL

Hoki Tawa, Bob Hulme

CHIEF PADDOCK MARSHAL

Paul Fallon

DEPUTY CHIEF PADDOCK MARSHAL

Mark Metcalfe

MEDICAL COORDINATOR

Neil Thistlethwaite

Tracey Stinger

John Storr

Matt Strang

Kai Taylor

Richard Taylor

Denis Tereshchenko

David Thompson

Maurice Thomson

Dene Thorburn

Blaire Thorpe

Amanda Tollmache

Lisa Totani

Ryan Turner

Rachael Waldrom

Richard Ward

Barry Warner

Donald Welsh

Damian White

John Wigston

Alex Wilkinson

Emily-Kate Williams

Keith Williams

Dean Wills

Helena Wilson

Kerry Wilson

James Winterbourne

Peter Woodward

Melvin Yee