BRITISH touring car powerhouse Triple Eight headed to Australia 20 years ago to take on the V8 Supercars scene, subsequently racing to unprecedented success.
But did you know that a Triple Eight Supercar once went in the other direction, from Australia to the UK, as part of the team’s efforts to conquer the V8 championship?
It’s one of a number of previously unpublished stories featured in our new book, Triple Eight: The Cars, 2003-2023, available now from the V8 Sleuth Superstore.
The car in question was 888A-009, which had been debuted by Max Wilson in late 2004, before being driven by Steven Ellery in ’05 and then Jamie Whincup throughout ’06.
It was after the 2006 season finale at Phillip Island that Triple Eight dispatched this Falcon to the UK, where it underwent testing on a shaker rig before returning to Australia and becoming a spare car.
Offshore shaker rig and wind tunnel testing was legal in those days, with similar covert missions undertaken by rival teams.
“The test was on a four-post rig we’d used a fair bit with Triple Eight UK,” the team’s then technical director Ludo Lacroix explained in the book.
“It’s very simple, but it gives you what happens when you heave and roll. It gives you data that you collect, and a direction.
“We only did it once because it was ticking a box, we didn’t need to do it again. It’s a big experiment and it’s expensive. We didn’t have an open chequebook.”
As well as further details on the shaker rig test, Lacroix also explains in the book the development of the BF aerodynamic package for 2007, which was undertaken in a wind tunnel with a scale model.
Just 2,500 of the individually numbered books have been produced, charting the team’s fortunes through the various Falcons, Commodores and Camaros it’s campaigned across 20 years.
Each car’s ‘Afterlife’ beyond Triple Eight is also chronicled. 888A-009 is now owned by Eggleston Motorsport and is currently being restored to its 2006 Adelaide 500-winning specifications.
