THE very first VE Commodore built for V8 Supercar racing is making its return to the track at March’s Phillip Island Classic.
Owned and to be driven by Brad Neill, the car was used by Mark Skaife for the opening rounds of the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship Series as the #2 Holden Racing Team Commodore entry.
Making its racing debut at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, the car had undertaken all of the testing and aerodynamic work the previous year for Holden Motorsport ahead of the new model’s homologation for V8 Supercar racing.
It later was used by Tony D’Alberto’s team in 2008, 2009 and 2010 in The Bottle-O and Centaur liveries respectively before being driven by David Wall (run by TDR) in the Fujitsu Series in 2011.
The car’s last period race was in the final round of that year’s Fujitsu Series with Wall driving at Sydney Olympic Park.
The full history on this chassis – WR 001 – and indeed all other HRT cars is included in V8 Sleuth’s HRT The Cars history book, available now here at a reduced price in the V8 Sleuth Superstore.
The hugely popular book covers all of the team’s cars, from the first VL Commodores right through to the last VF Commodores that represented the team in 2016.
“The car (WR 001) has a fresh zero kilometres motor, new gearbox, brakes and rotors, we’ve stripped and painted all the wheels in HRT white, it’s looking great,” Neill told V8 Sleuth this week.
Queensland-based Neill competed in the Kumho Series from 2017 to 2019, starting in an ex-David ‘Truckie’ Parsons Commodore VS before stepping into an ex-Stone Brothers Racing SP Tools Falcon FG.
It was that very Falcon that Cameron McLeod drove in last year’s Kumho Series decider at the Bathurst International.
Neill drove an ex-HRT Commodore VF in the opening round of the Dunlop Series at Bathurst in 2021.
