GROVE Racing is liking what it is seeing from its next Matt Payne.
Payne was the first graduate of the Grove Junior Team, and the 20-year-old has shown significant promise in his rookie Repco Supercars Championship campaign this year.
Next in the pipeline is Oscar Targett.
The young gun is currently competing in both the Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series and Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge.
Targett has run in the mid-pack at all three Toyota 86 rounds to date but has thrived in Sprint Challenge, climbing to fourth in the standings despite having missed the entire first round. He has finished top three in five of nine races to date.
Targett is still several years off being main game ready – and the Groves are quite okay with that, given they’ve settled on a Supercars line-up of Payne and Richie Stanaway for at least 2024.
But Targett looms large in their plans for down the track.
“As part of the junior program, this year we wanted him to do Toyota 86 and give him a lot of race craft, and obviously we’ve put him into the Porsche Challenge,” team owner Stephen Grove told V8 Sleuth.
“That’s high-speed and the ability to race at that level.
“If everything progresses well, then next year he’ll most likely do Carrera Cup and then the plan is Super2 or Carrera Cup and then, depending on the licence, move him into a Supercar role in three or four years (from now).
“We like what we see. He’s a hard racer.
“Anybody that races go-karts overseas knows how to race because it’s pretty competitive and pretty tough.
“We’re liking everything that we see and for us it’s about long-term development and getting the next generation of drivers through.”
Also in the Grove Junior Team are Mika LeMasurier and Sebastian Tander, the latter being the son of five-time Bathurst 1000 winner Garth.
