Paul Weel Racing

V8 Supercar Team
Short_name = Paul Weel Racing

Manufacturer = Holden
Principal = Kees Weel
Manager = Paul Weel
Drivers = 50. Andrew Thompson
Chassis = VE Commodore
Debut = 1997
Drivers_champ = 0
Wins = 3
Poles = 6
Last_season = 2007
Last_position = 10th (104 points)

Paul Weel Racing is a V8 Supercar racing team.

Ford Years

PWR Racing started out as a single car operation from Queensland where the family lived. The team ran an ex-Longhurst EL Falcon for Paul Weel, a graduate of stadium off-road racing and wearing signage of family owned companies. Very much a privateer outfit in the beginning the team expanded quickly and Paul Weel's ability increased to become one of the front running privateer operations. They soon constructed their own AU Falcon in preference to buying used racecars from more senior outfits and even built cars specifically for front running teams, notably fellow front running Queensland privateers, Greenfield Mowers Racing. A highlight of this period was finishing inside the top ten at the Bathurst 1000 on their first two attempts in 1998 and 1999 and qualifying for the top 15 Shootout at Bathurst 2001.

Moving to Holden

After a few seasons pulling out the team, the Weel's made a partnership with the late Peter Brock and grew the team to two cars and hiring the services of Jason Bright after he left Holden Racing Team and rebranding themselves as Team Brock, the title previously used by Rod Nash Racing and gaining sponsorship from Betta Electrical. In 2004, the team was self-funded again, this time by Kees and Paul's performance and modification company, PWR Performance. The team had a good year with Bright, claiming third in the championship.

Parntership with Supercheap Auto

In 2005, the team rejuvenated after they announced that they partnered themselves with Automotive parts giant, Supercheap Auto who had some lean years with Ford and Steve Ellery Racing and had left in the middle of the Indy 300 round in 2004. More shock announcements came when Greg Murphy joined the team replacing Bright. The other announcement was that SCAR/PWR were going to use engines built by Perkins Engineering while still having ties with Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) by using older specification chassis originally used by HRT. The team had some early joy with Murphy winning the second round of the 2005 series in his native New Zealand. But when they switched to the Perkins "Aurora" engine after the Shanghai round, the team were struggling with reliability, poor consistency and both Murphy and Weel were complaining of an imbalance and handling difficulties. Murphy made headlines after tapping Marcos Ambrose into the wall at the 2005 Bathurst 1000 and the two had a heated argument.

At the end of the season, Paul Weel announced his retirement from full time racing to focus on his aftermarket performance company, PWR. He was replaced by Cameron McConville and the team was joined by finance giant No Limit. In 2006, the team had a string of bad luck, only scoring a couple of Top 10 finishes.

In 2007 , Paul Dumbrell replaced Murphy. Another change was in order when PWR got outsourced chassis for the first time. These came from Dencar, the chassis engineering arm of Walkinshaw Performance. While still using the Perkins engine, the engines would be serviced "in house".

Collapse and re-birth

Just before the 2007 Winton round, it was announced that Kees and Paul Weel had sold their team to John Marshall, CEO of No Limit Finance. Kees and Paul were still going to manage the team for the rest of the season, with the handover date somewhere in the near future. It was rumored that John's son, Marcus Marshall was going to drive in the endurance rounds of this year with Matthew White while Paul Weel was going to be "axed". In June 2007 though, the sale of the team fell through. Kees and Paul Weel continued to run the team. In November 2007 year, it was announced that Kees and Paul Weel will close the team down, with the expansion of the PWR Performance company restricting his time to effectively run the team.

As the 2008 season approached the threat of $150,000 fines for not entering a car with sales of the teams two franchises proving problematic, the team announced a deal to run former Fujitsu V8 Supercars Series front runner Andrew Thompson for the 2008 season in one of the teams VE Commodores.

External links

* [http://www.supercheapautoracing.com.au/ The Supercheap Auto Racing website]
* [http://www.crash.net/news_view~cid~53~id~148094.htm No Limit buys SuperCheap Auto Racing]
* [http://www.v8supercar.com.au/news/latestnews/newsdisplay.asp?Ind=M&author=&gid=23489741 Dumbrell to Super Cheap Auto Racing]
* [http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22761542-12428,00.html SuperCheap Racing pulls out] ]