The celebrations to mark 50 years of V8 Supercars racing at Mt Panorama have got in full swing as teams begin to arrive in Bathurst for Sunday’s 1000km race.
Holden’s Kelly Racing and Ford Performance Racing’s championship contenders Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison have made nods to history on their way to the western NSW town.
Kelly Racing owners and former Bathurst winners Todd and Rick Kelly, whose trips to Bathurst in a special vehicle have become a yearly habit, this year made the pilgrimage in their mother Margaret’s 1960 FB Holden.
The pair’s co-drivers Tim Blanchard and David Russell joined the Kellys for the road trip, the pair’s last before they end their long association with Holden to head up Nissan’s entry into the championship in 2013.
“We wanted to thank Holden for their long-standing support of both Rick and I,” Todd Kelly said.
“It will be great to crank up Mum’s old FB as we make our last trip to race a Commodore at Bathurst.”
But the Kellys aren’t alone in taking a historical approach to their trip to Bathurst.
Winterbottom and Davison’s Falcons will pay homage to one of Ford’s greatest Bathurst moments with the factory-backed team running its cars in the same colours as the 1977 one-two finishers driven by Allan Moffat and Colin Bond.
“The passion of our sport really comes to a head at Bathurst every single year, though perhaps never more so than this year with the 50th anniversary celebrations and what we as a team are doing,” 2009 race winner Davison said.
“It’s an honour to go there as a factory Ford driver racing with the colours from arguably the company’s greatest moment. Our cars look amazing and I think we’ve really done justice to the 1977 team.”
FPR’s sister team, The Bottle-O Racing Team, is also joining in on the retro livery theme and has recreated the paint scheme of the 1967 race-winning Falcon of Harry Firth and Fred Gibson.
The team has an exact colour-match of the green livery, even going to the extent of hand-painting the logos onto the car.
All the drivers will be introduced to Bathurst later on Wednesday in the annual driver parade in the town centre with the action getting underway on Thursday with opening practice.
