A VISIT to the newsagent in late 1998 delivered Darren Hossack an unpleasant surprise.
Hossack joined the Australian Touring Car Championship as a privateer in 1997, driving a Wynn’s Commodore before stepping up into a fully-fledged Gibson Motorsport seat.
The ’97 enduros proved fruitful, Hossack and Steven Ellery combining for eighth in the Sandown 500 and sixth at Bathurst.
The following season proved difficult, and Hossack was subbed out for Tomas Mezera for the final three championship rounds.
He returned though for Sandown and Bathurst and once again shone, placing eighth and seventh, respectively, with Darren Pate as his co-driver.
But that proved the end of the road, as Hossack learned in unique fashion.
“At the end of 1998, I flew over to Perth to visit (future wife) Mel and we went to Busselton for a night or two,” he recalled on Part 1 of his V8 Sleuth Podcast polished by Bowden’s Own episode.
“And as you did back in the day, Auto Action comes out, so you go to the newsagents, got to buy Auto Action, and I remember standing there, it was at about knee height on the shelf, and there it is on the front page: (Greg) Murphy and (Steven) Richards to drive the Wynn’s cars.
“That’s how I found out.
“There was certainly no inkling that I wasn’t going to have a drive, but I found out pretty quickly that that was the case.
“All of that could have been handled better, but it is what it is.”
Hossack went on to make another three Great Race starts in his career, as well as winning two national Sports Sedans titles.
Part 2 of the Hossack podcast will be released later today.
