NO longer is Matt Stone Racing merely the team owned by the son of a Stone Brothers Racing spearhead.
Its eponymous owner Matt Stone worked as a mechanic at Ford-aligned SBR before launching MSR in 2011 as a one-car Super2 squad.
SBR bowed out at the end of 2012, selling to Erebus Motorsport, its 15-year career including winning the Bathurst 1000 on debut (Jason Bright/Steve Richards, 1998) and clinching three successive championship crowns (2003-05 via Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall).
MSR first appeared in the Supercars Championship as a one-off wildcard at the 2017 Ipswich SuperSprint, before stepping up the following year for its first full season in the main game.
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Ever since then, results have been few and far between – in fact, it has never had a driver place higher than 18th in the championship, and prior to last weekend it remained podium-less.
But energised by Gen3, MSR is quickly forging its own legacy, something which has been accelerated by Jack Le Brocq’s victory from pole position at Hidden Valley.
Stone’s father Jim, who worked for Bruce McLaren once upon a time, was heavily involved in MSR’s build of its Truck Assist Camaros.
A man of few words, the Supercars Hall of Famer did not attend the Darwin Triple Crown but excitedly congratulated his son from afar.
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Matt added: “It’s great to have the Stone name back up on the front.
“I have just got to say to everyone in the team and everyone who supports the team, I can’t thank them enough for believing in what we were doing and putting in the effort and getting us to where we are now.”
Speaking further with V8 Sleuth, he noted the result was proof of MSR’s plan to build bit by bit.
“Since we started, we always said we were on a slow journey to build organically up to the team we wanted to be,” said Stone.
“Now with this Gen3 era, we sort of set the target of, it’s time to stop building and putting too much focus on rookie drivers and giving them some miles, and more focus on getting out there and getting some results.
“It’s what we set out to do this year and to tick the box of the pole and the win on the same weekend before the season is half over, it’s bloody brilliant and testament to all the hard work by the whole family that is the team.”
