IT was Jamie Whincup that started the practice of bestowing nicknames on cars at Triple Eight.
Shane van Gisbergen ran with it too.
Now the team’s new generation of pilots have continued the tradition with their new cars for 2024.
Both Broc Feeney and new recruit Will Brown were given brand new chassis for the start of the 2024 season.
888A-065 and 888A-066 were the fourth and fifth Chevrolet Camaros to be built and raced by the team since the dawn of Supercars’ Gen3 era last year, and were given a shakedown in late January at Queensland Raceway in colours promoting the team’s upcoming Livery Landing launch event at Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport a few days later.
Feeney was quick to reveal the nickname given to his, announcing on social media after the launch event that chassis 888A-065 had been christened ‘Charlotte’.
Brown was a little cagier about the moniker given to chassis 888A-066, but finally revealed its name on social media in recent days.
Charlotte and Rhonda follow in the tyre tracks of iconic Triple Eight chassis like Chastitii, the van Gisbergen car that holds the record for the most race wins by a single car, and Kate, Whincup’s double title-winning and 2012 Bathurst-winning chassis.
Indeed, the latter is currently back under the parental roof in Banyo with her younger sisters.
The new cars also look more than capable of living up to the success of their predecessors, too; between them, Charlotte and Rhonda have won all but one race so far in 2024.
It’s Rhonda who has the edge though; she has left just 25 points on the table across the six races held so far and will carry the championship leader’s orange numbers next weekend at Taupō.
