Supercars team owners honoured at Motorsport Australia awards

Four past or present Supercars team owners are among a host of individuals to have been recognised at the Motorsport Australia National Awards, presented by Shannons Insurance.

Brad and Kim Jones were awarded the Membership of Honour, one of Motorsport Australia’s highest honours, while Roland Dane and Dr Ryan Story were announced as Life Members in a gala dinner at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

With the gala being the first since 2020, life membership effective 2021 was also given to Graeme Palmer, John Rosengrave, Laurence Svenson, and Derek Pingel, and effective 2022 to Ewan Cole and Roger Brown.

Kim Jones retired in late-2020 while brother Brad continues as leader at his eponymous team, which is a race winner in the Supercars Championship and has scored several titles in other national competitions.

BJR dominated AUSCAR in the early-1990s with five straight championships before making it six in a row with the step up to Australian NASCAR in the 1994-95 season.

The squad also operated as the factory Audi effort in the Australian Super Touring Championship, achieving the drivers’ (courtesy of Brad himself) and teams’ championship double in both 1996 and 1998.

Dane was one of the co-founders of the Australian offshoot of Triple Eight Racing which would go on to become the premier team in Supercars under his leadership.

Triple Eight Race Engineering’s nine Bathurst 1000 wins, 11 teams’ championship titles, and 10 drivers’ championship titles are all either equal or outright records.

In recent years, the only competitor to truly upstage it for a sustained period of time has been DJR Team Penske/Dick Johnson Racing, which counted Story as Team Principal until recently and now as its Non-Executive Chairman.

He is also credited as being a key player in saving the Australian Touring Car Championship’s oldest team when it fell on hard times early in the previous decade.

As for the 2022 class of life members, Cole is one of the country’s most senior officials and trainers, while Brown was honoured for “his natural leadership and problem-solving skills in demanding situations.”

Bob Hockley was named as the 2022 Motorsport Australia Official of the Year, having been a scrutineer since 1974, a Technical Commissioner for multiple national categories, a NSW State Council Executive member, and, currently a member of the NSW Scrutiny Advisory Panel.

Supercars driver Thomas Randle was named the 2022 Peter Brock Medallist and rally steerer Taylor Gill the Young Driver of the Year.

Randle has defied health battles to compete at the top level of Australian circuit racing while Gill won last year’s FIA Rally Star Asia Pacific Final, earning himself an overseas drive in a Rally3 car.

Various national champions were also acknowledged, as well as Australia’s Motorsport Games competitors.

State Awards will be held in coming weeks.