THERE may have been no ex-V8 Supercars enter the Invitational Class of the 2022 Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, but that’s not to say there are none of them competing this weekend at Mount Panorama.
Five ex-V8 Supercars are competing in the Combined Sedans support category at the event, with four Commodores and one Falcon among the mixed field that consists of a range of makes and models.
Perhaps the stand-out is the ex-TEKNO Autosports Commodore VE II driven by Matt Stone Racing Supercars driver Jack Le Brocq.
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Owner Warren Millett has put Le Brocq behind the wheel for this weekend’s races of a car that competed at Bathurst 10 years ago in the 2012 Bathurst 1000 with TEKNO, driven by team owner Jonathon Webb and ‘Great Race’ debutante Scott McLaughlin.
The Triple Eight-built Commodore VE II has largely been absent from the track since Millett purchased it, its last race event at Bathurst in 2016 with Eggleston Motorsport ending when Liam McAdam crashed it during practice.
There’s a pair of Jack Daniel’s Commodores at Bathurst in Combined Sedans driven by Allen Nash and Mark Duggan.
Nash is driving PE 046, the second VE Commodore built by Perkins Engineering that competed as a Jack Daniel’s car by Jack Perkins in 2007. It later ended up with Kelly Racing and then privateer Aaron McGill and has been restored to its original Jack Daniel’s livery.
Duggan has taken to the wheel of PE 048, Rick Kelly’s 2009 championship car with Kelly Racing in Jack Daniel’s colours that David Reynolds raced as a Stratco car in 2011.
The car’s last major race appearance was in 2019 at Winton in Super3 with Emily Duggan at the wheel.
The full history of the recently restored 1993 Bathurst winning car is detailed in V8 Sleuth’s book Perkins Engineering: The Cars, 1986-2018.
Sold out in the V8 Sleuth Bookshop, Bathurst’s National Motor Racing Museum holds the last remaining stock. Contact them on (02) 6332 1872 to secure a copy.
The fourth Commodore competing in Combined Sedans is Stephen Coe whose ex-Paul Morris Motorsports Commodore VE was nicknamed ‘Hercules’ by the Morris team.
It was the car ‘The Dude’ rolled at Pukekohe in 2007 and has been owned by Coe since 2013.
The only Falcon competing in Combined Sedans is Super3 driver Jarred Danaher, whose ex-Jim Beam Racing Falcon FG was Steven Johnson’s car from 2009 to 2012.
It’s the very same chassis that crashed at Bathurst in 2011 with David Besnard at the wheel and caught on fire at Griffins Bend.
Repaired, it returned to action for the following round at the Gold Coast and after it finished its time at DJR moved into the Development (Super2) Series with Drew and Aaren Russell at the wheel.
