Bob Jane

Robert "Bob" Jane (born 1929) is an Australian former race car driver and prominent businessman. A four-time winner of the Armstrong 500, the race that preceded the prestigious Bathurst 1000, Jane is perhaps known best nowadays for his chain of tyre retailers, "Bob Jane T-Marts".

Jane grew up in Brunswick, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne. In the 1950s, he started Bob Jane Autoland, a company which distributed parts for Jaguar and Alfa Romeo. Through this venture, a love of cars and motorsport blossomed and he first entered competitive racing in Australia in 1956; by 1960, he was racing with some of Australia's top sedan drivers.

Racing career

In 1961, Jane and co-driver Harry Firth won the Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island, Victoria, driving a Mercedes-Benz 220SE.

On the track, Bob Jane was racing hard, early in his career along with Firth, won the race again the following year, the last before the event moved to Mount Panorama at Bathurst, New South Wales (but retained the Armstrong 500 name).

Jane, driving for the Ford works team, won the first two of these races in 1963 and 1964, the first with Firth and the second with George Reynolds as co-driver.

Despite the change of venue, Jane is officially credited with winning Australia's most famous endurance race four times in a row, something no other driver has ever done.

Jane won the Australian Touring Car Championship (now known as the V8 Supercar series) in 1962, 1963, 1971 and 1972. His 1971 ATCC win was in a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 with a 427 cubic inch engine. Jane was forced by a rule change to replace the 427 engine with a 350 cubic inch engine for the 1972 championship but the Camaro still managed to beat the opposition, which included Allan Moffat's famous Trans-Am Mustang. Of the 38 races he started in the ATCC, he finished on the podium 21 times.

Bob Jane also won the Marlboro Sports Sedan Series in 1974 and 1975 at his own Calder Park Raceway driving a modified Holden Monaro.

He also won the 1963 Australian GT Championship.

He retired from racing in 1986.

Bob Jane T-Marts

Jane's passion for motor racing also carried with it a vast knowledge for choosing the right equipment for his race cars.

He had a particularly keen interest in tyres and his expertise made him well-known in racing circles. Through his parts business, Bob Jane Autoland, he imported high-performance tyres from Germany. Not only were these tyres snapped up by his customers, but they gave him a competitive edge in Australia as racing tyres were not as heavily regulated as they are today.

In 1965, Jane opened the first Bob Jane T-Marts store in Melbourne. The company remains an independent, family-owned business to this day; Bob's son, Rodney Jane, is the current CEO.

From 2002 to 2004, Bob Jane T-Marts held the naming rights sponsorship for the Bathurst 1000, the race Jane dominated early in his career. The company also holds the naming rights to Bob Jane Stadium, home of South Melbourne FC.

Bob Jane T-Marts is the only major tyre retailer in Australia to not sell retreads, the reason behind that is Jane's daughter died in a car accident due to a retreaded tyre blowing out.

Contributions to Australian motorsport

Australian Grand Prix

From 1980 to 1984, the Australian Grand Prix was held at his Calder Park Raceway in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Although from 1981 the races were run under Formula Mondiale regulations, Jane succeeded in attracting many of the best Formula 1 drivers of the era; setting the stage for the first ever Australian Formula 1 World Championship Grand Prix, which was held in Adelaide in 1985.

NASCAR

Jane is credited with bringing stock car racing to Australia. Long resistant to oval racing (seeing it as dull and monotonous when compared to circuit racing), Australian motorsport fans finally had their own superspeedway when Jane spent $AU54 million building the Thunderdome on the grounds of Calder Park Raceway. Opened on August 3, 1987, the Thunderdome played host to the first NASCAR event held outside North America on February 28, 1988. Several prominent drivers from the United States came to Australia for this race including Bobby Allison, Neil Bonnett and others from the Winston West Series.

Personal life

On February 23, 2007, Bob Jane was granted a 12 month intervention order against his estranged wife, Laree Jane. At the time, she was 39 and they had been married for 20 years. He has accused her of threatening to shoot him and threatening him with a kitchen knife. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bob-jane-wins-order-against-wife/2007/02/23/1171734000857.html]

Ongoing Court Hearing

An article published by Fairfax on the 22nd of May 2008 discussed an ongoing court case between Bob Jane and his estranged wire Laree Jane. Laree is accused of having over 1.5 million dollars worth of credit card debts at one stage, and signing a mortgage on Bob's house in order to pay for them. While Bob believes the signature on the mortgage looks like his own, he has no recollection of signing the document:

"THE tyre tycoon Bob Jane admits the signature looks like his but yesterday he denied signing a mortgage to pay off $1.5 million of his former wife's credit card debts."

Laree owned more than 41 credit cards, and Bob has made it public that she often went over her yearly $800 000 limit imposed on her credit cards.

The court hearing continues... [ [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/05/21/1211182896571.html Blow-out that sent Bob Jane into a spin - National - smh.com.au ] ]

References