Garry Rogers Motorsport

V8 Supercar Team
Short_name = Garry Rogers Motorsport

Manufacturer = Holden
Principal = Garry Rogers
Manager = Kevin Shawyer
Drivers = 33. Lee Holdsworth
34. Michael Caruso
Chassis = VE Commodore
Debut = 1996
Drivers_champ = 0
Wins = 7
Poles = 4
Last_season = 2006
Last_position = 10th (2419 points)

Garry Rogers Motorsport is an Australian Touring Car Team.

Pre Touring Car Era

Garry Rogers Motorsport started out as a small privateer team in the late 70's running a Holden Torana. After a few seasons, the team disbanded in the early 80s and re-emerged in the late 80's running a Commodore. The raced at the Calder Park Thunderdome in both NASCAR and AUSCAR during the categories heyday and raced in production car racing at event like the Winton 300 and Bathurst 12 Hour using Nissan Pulsar and 300ZX cars as Garry Rogers owns a Nissan dealership in Melbourne where the present V8Supercar team is based. Rogers also assisted in Formula Ford teams during the 90's, assisting title sponsors Valvoline's promotion of Australian motorsport.

uper Touring

GRM joined the fledging Australian Super Touring Car Championship in 1994 with young lead driver Steven Richards piloting the teams Alfa Romeo 155 TS. Quickly Richards was established as one of the series leading privateers, finishing ninth in the burgeoning championship. In 1995 the team replaced the Alfa with a Honda Accord and used it to win the Privateers Cup and finished fifth in the championship behind the two factory supported BMWs and Audis. The team continued into 1996, replacing the Honda with a Nissan Primera but the teams form slipped, distracted by their new V8Supercar and finished seventh, losing the Privateers Cup to Cameron McLean.

V8 Supercar Series

1990s

In 1996, GRM joined the V8 Supercar Series with Richards in a Gibson Motor Sport sourced Holden VS Commodore. In 1998, the team expanded to a second car, purchased from the Holden Racing Team for Jason Bargwanna to drive. When a test drive beckoned for Richards in the British Touring Car Championship with the Nissan team, former Formula Ford champion Garth Tander stepped into Richards' car.

2000s

The team continued to build on their success with the pinnacle coming in 2000 with Tander and Bargwanna winning the Bathurst 1000 in 2000 with Tander finishing runner up in the championship behind HRT's Mark Skaife. Jason left at the end of the 2002 season and was replaced by youngster Jamie Whincup, who was sacked at the end of the 2003 season. He was replaced by Cameron McConville, who took a controversial win at the 2004 Winton round, after overtaking Rick Kelly on the second last corner of the race just out of a yellow flag zone. At the end of the 2004 season, Tander left to replace Greg Murphy at the then called team Kmart Racing. Andrew Jones joined the team but was sacked after the Bathurst 1000 even though he claimed 4th with McConville. He was replaced by Dean Canto who joined the team for the 2006 season. As McConville left for Supercheap Auto Racing, he was replaced by Lee Holdsworth. The 2006 season was a relatively quiet season, with only one race win in the reverse grid race at Western Australia.

In 2007, GRM picked up their first round win since Cameron McConville's win at the 2004 Winton round, courtesy of Lee Holdsworth's stunning drive in the wet at Oran Park. For 2008, Michael Caruso replaced Canto in car 34. Holdsworth was 2nd at the Clipsal 500, and he and Caruso finished 5th at the L&H 500.

Nations Cup

In 2002 Holden Motorsport was looking at running a Monaro in Australia's Nations Cup Championship for exotic sports cars against the likes of the Lamborghini Diablo GT, Ferrari F360 NGT, Chrysler Viper ACR, Porsche 911 GT3 RS & Porsche GT3 Cup. Its most 'exotic' car was the Monaro. Garry Rogers Motorsport was given the job of building the car as well as running it. The car ran a GRM version of the Corvette C5-R 427cui motor. In its race debut, the 2002 Bathurst 24hr it overcame fuel cell problems to win the race by 24 laps driven by Garth Tander, Steven Richards, Cameron McConville and Nathan Pretty. Pretty then drove the car in the 2003 & 2004 Nations Cup Championship scoring numerous race and round wins but not the title. In 2003 GRM built a second car for the legendary Peter Brock. It was this second car which won the second Bathurst 24hr race with Jason Bright, Todd Kelly and Greg Murphy sharing the driving with Brock. The winning car from 2002, driven by the same four drivers as the previous year finished second less than one second behind after 24 hours of racing. A third car was later built for Team Brock.

2007 Season

Dean Canto and Lee Holdsworth will continue driving with GRM for the 2007 season. Canto début the team's first VE Commodore chassis, while Holdsworth continued to use the older VZ Commodore until his new VE came online later in the season. Holdsworth was joined this year by a new engineer in James Small. Small has previously raced in national Formula Ford and has his Bachelor in Engineering (Mechanical).

The team has also début an exciting new look for the 2007 season, with a new livery that went away from their traditional blue/white/red colours. The new paint scheme is a very striking silver and black livery, but still with continued support from Valvoline and Cummins. Although they have lost Repco as a major sponsor.

Lee Holdsworth secured his maiden V8 Supercar round win on the 19th August at Sydney's Oran Park. Having qualified a career best 4th, he continued his stellar form and won the third race in very wet conditions, at one time taking a 49 second lead. The round win is the first for the team since Cameron McConville's surprise win at Winton in 2004. Garry Rogers described Lee Holdsworth as a young Jim Richards, comparing his level-headedness to that of the former champion.

External links

* [http://www.grmotorsport.com.au/ The Garry Rogers Motorsport website]