Bob Jane re-lives his victory at Calder Park

Bob Jane Re-Lives His 1969 Ford Victory At Calder In The Ford Tickford Racing Au Falcon V8 Supercar

July 12, 2001 - Bob Jane, at 71 years of age, broke a seventeen year hiatus from motor racing when he strapped himself into the Ford Tickford Racing V8 Supercar to mark the 25th Anniversary of Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) / Shell Championship Series racing at Melbourne's Calder Park Raceway today.

Driving a Ford Mustang in 1969, Jane won the opening round of that year's ATCC at Calder Park in a dominant display after battling with arch rivals Pete Geoghegan (Ford) and Norm Beechey (Holden) throughout the race.

Jane celebrated this Calder Park milestone by driving the car that Glenn Seton hopes will power him to victory this weekend at Melbourne's home of motorsport, which is host to the seventh round of the Shell Championship Series for V8 Supercars this Sunday. (July 15).

After a surprisingly long black tracker burnout down pitlane, Jane powered off to a handful of laps around the short Calder Park circuit, the same layout that he competed on back in 1969 before the circuit was extended to its current 2.28km configuration.

Jane didn't put a wheel wrong, driving the state of the art Ford Tickford Racing AU Falcon V8 Supercar fairly conservatively, watched under the encouraging eyes of team owner and driver Glenn Seton accompanied by his somewhat more worried FTR crew.

According to Jane, it was a fantastic experience to drive a modern day V8 Supercar, "The FTR Falcon was fantastic to drive - like any racing car it is very tough to drive them fast as they can bite quite suddenly, but I was very careful as it was Glenn's race car, not some imitation car. I was very wary of this. If I could do this kind of thing every couple of years or so it would keep my racing urges at bay quite nicely," The 71 year old four time Australian Touring Car Champion said.

Action starts for the 25th running of an ATCC/ Shell Championship Series round at Calder Park tomorrow (Friday) with V8 Supercar pre-qualifying and practice sessions for all support categories appearing this weekend - Formula Ford, Formula Holden, HQ Sedans and Saloon cars. Calder Park has a non stop schedule of motor racing planned this weekend that will satisfy the most discerning motor racing fans' appetites for high octane action.

Saturday will see the Ford and Holden V8 Supercar heroes battle it out for the best starting positions for the first of Sunday's three sprint races, then on Sunday its no holds barred V8 Supercar action with Round 7 of the Shell Championship Series getting the green light, consisting of three fast and furious sprint races. /ends.

-CP-