FOR the first time this year, a Falcon will appear in the Dunlop Series – and it’s no run-of-the-mill Supercar.
Tickford Racing last night announced a Super3 entry for teenager Rylan Gray at next week’s VAILO Adelaide 500.
But in what car, some readers have asked. Well, V8 Sleuth has the answer for you.
Gray will steer FPR 1212 (featured in a Tickford history book available to pre-order here), which coincidentally began its racing life in Adelaide more than a decade ago.
That was in the hands of Alex Davison at the 2013 Adelaide 500, back when Team 18 slotted in under the Ford Performance Racing umbrella.
It stayed with Team 18 for the following season, when it was united with its first driver who would later become a Supercars Championship race winner: Jack Perkins.
Perkins raced the car throughout 2014 including in the enduros, when he had Cam Waters – another future winner – as his co-driver.
With Team 18 moving into the Walkinshaw Racing fold for 2015, FPR 1212 shifted within what was now Prodrive Racing Australia, initially driven by Andre Heimgartner (yet another future winner) and then David Reynolds, including to victories in Darwin and Pukekohe.
Its final main game season came in 2016, with Waters in his rookie full-time campaign.
Even then it was not done; its first two pilots in the Dunlop Series remarkably being another couple of Supercars race winners to be, Jack Le Brocq (Bathurst 2016 Super2) and Anton De Pasquale (2017 Super2).
Shae Davies drove the car in ’18 and Nash Morris last year, its most recent race coming at the 2022 Adelaide 500.
