FORMER Bathurst 1000 and touring car racer John Trimble has died.
The former Daily Planet chief passed away on Saturday after a long battle with prostate cancer, aged 75.
Trimble is best remembered by motorsport fans for his Daily Planet and Bottle Magic V8 Supercar/touring cars.
He first appeared in Australian touring car racing in 1992 and, after bailing out of an on-fire Commodore in practice, joined Andrew Harris and Gary Cooke in the sister Daily Planet Commodore to finish 10th in the rain-shortened race.
Trimble ended up making six Bathurst 1000 starts.
His best finish of ninth came in 1994 alongside Garry Waldon in the same VP Commodore that had won the race the previous year in Larry Perkins and Gregg Hansford’s hands.
Trimble was something of a regular at Bathurst in the 1990s, all of his Bathurst 1000 starts coming in that decade.
He later moved into a Falcon sourced from Dick Johnson Racing before moving back to a Commodore run under the Bottle Magic banner with Tomas Mezera as co-driver.
Mezera survived a massive roll-over at Bathurst in 1997 in that car when one of its tyres blew entering the Chase and sent him on a wild ride.
After a stint racing a Mitsubishi Lancer in GT-Production, Trimble returned to V8 Supercars with the ex-Gibson/Ellery Young Lions Commodore in which he made his last Bathurst start in 1999 with Kevin Heffernan as co-driver.
He drove the car in the inaugural Konica V8 Lites Series in 2000 until a huge accident at Phillip Island destroyed that particular chassis.
Trimble made 30 ATCC round starts between 1993 and 2000.
Son Michael followed in his footsteps in both business and racing, competing in Formula Ford, Porsche Carrera Cup and the V8 Supercar Development Series.
