THE DELTA Europcar Commodore V8 Supercar originally run by Mike Imrie’s Melbourne-based privateer team and raced by James Brock has made a return to Mount Panorama.
The former Bathurst 1000 car is competing at this weekend’s Repco Bathurst 12 Hour in the Combined Sedans field with owner Hugh Zochling behind the wheel, the car run by former Development Series and Kumho Series driver Aaron Tebb’s Waltec Motorsport.
The car, chassis IMS 01 made three Bathurst 1000 starts covering 2000 to 2002 and appeared for auction in late 2021.
Its current livery is perhaps its most well-known. It was in the Europcar colours in which James Brock and Steve Owen raced it in the 2001 V8 Supercar 1000 at Bathurst, where an accident triggered by a puncture put them out after just 12 laps.
The car had earlier been raced by the duo at that year’s Queensland 500 and by Brock in the Winton sprint round between the two enduros; the only single-driver V8 Supercars Championship round start of his career.
“I’m a Brock and Holden devotee from way back,” Zochling told V8 Sleuth today at Bathurst.
“This weekend is my first race in the car, I had a shakedown in it two or three weeks ago at Sydney Motorsport Park. We’ve swapped the diff to suit the long Bathurst straights.”
There’s some ironic links between the car’s history, its colour and the business world of its current owner/driver Zochling.
He’s the founder and Executive Director of HadleyGreen Investment Group, established in the same year – 2001 – that this green Commodore competed in this livery at Bathurst – true!
IMS 01 was campaigned by a host of other drivers in the main series from 2000 to ’02.
Drivers included owner Imrie, who was famously spun into the Queensland Raceway pit wall by Russell Ingall during what was this car’s third race meeting in the 2000 Shell Championship Series. Other notable drivers included Greg Ritter, Tomas Mezera, Wayne Wakefield and former motorcycle ace Daryl Beattie.
The car was sold by Imrie in 2003 and later raced in the Konica Series and Touring Car Challenge with a series of other owners.
Imrie then bought it back in 2013 and returned it to its Europcar colours, subsequently appearing at heritage events with the Australian Five Litre Touring Car Association before he placed it up for sale via auction in late 2021.
Friday’s Duggan Family Hotels Combined Sedans Race 1 at Bathurst was won by Geoff Taunton’s GT SS over Kiwi Angus Fogg’s Mustang and Scott Cameron’s Commodore.
Fogg came out on top of an entertaining scrap with Taunton to take the win in Saturday morning’s second race with the third and final race of the weekend to come this afternoon.
