BEN Grice is set to get behind the wheel of a V8 Supercar as part of the Adelaide Motorsport Festival on March 25-26.
The Trans Am Series star will drive Mike Imrie’s ex-Gibson Motorsport Wynn’s Commodore VT as part of the pack of ex-V8 Supercars appearing at the event from the Australian 5-Litre Touring Car Association.
The car was raced by Steve Richards in the 1999 Shell Championship Series as the #7 Wynn’s Commodore and became the GMS-run Challenge Recruitment Commodore driven by David ‘Truckie’ Parsons and David ‘Skippy’ Parsons in that year’s Queensland and Bathurst endurance races.
Richards finished fifth in the car in the inaugural Sensational Adelaide 500 that year.
“There’s plenty of cool cars at that Adelaide Motorsport Festival event, some F1 stuff from overseas with that classic V10 and V12 Grand Prix noise, it will be cool to hear and see,” Grice told V8 Sleuth.
“It’s my first time there on the Adelaide street track so it will be fun.”
Grice’s only previous tastes of a V8 Supercar came back in 2015. He sampled one of Matt Palmer’s ex-Brad Jones Racing Falcon Kumho Series cars at Winton and also did an Evaluation Day at the same venue later in the year in one of Terry Wyhoon’s Image Racing ex-Stone Brothers Racing’s FG Falcons.
He’s back in action this weekend at Race Tasmania at Symmons Plains for the opening round of the National Trans Am Series at the wheel of his #03 All American Auto Parts and Driveline Ford Mustang.
Grice’s Mustang has undergone significant repairs since last November’s Bathurst International, where he crashed in practice, though was still able to start at the rear of the grid and work his way through to a podium finish by the last race.
“The car’s had a rear clip put on it and it was perfect at the recent test we did with it,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“From the main hoop back it’s pretty much all new in the chassis.”
Grice will be up against a Trans Am field in Tasmania that includes James Moffat, Tim Slade and ex-Super2 Series race winners Jaylyn Robotham and Tyler Everingham.
