THE MAN WHO BUILT AN EMPIRE

SUPERCARS’ MOST SUCCESSFUL – AND DIVISIVE – TEAM OWNER, ROLAND DANE, IS RETIRING, HANDING CONTROL OF TRIPLE EIGHT RACING TO CHAMPION DRIVER JAMIE WHINCUP AS AUSTRALIAN TOURING CAR RACING ENTERS A NEW ERA

- MARK FOGARTY

QUEENSLAND RACEWAY, July 2003. At the most unprepossessing track in the country, leading British touring car team owner Roland Dane visits with one of his business partners.

They have come to buy a V8 Supercars team and the QR round is part of their reconnaissance.

Dane and his cohort Peter Butterly think they will roam the V8 paddock unrecognised.

To their dismay, I’m there. I have just returned from a long stint overseas, including several years covering the BTCC, and already have a long history with Dane.

His appearance at QR coincided with my first event back in Australia after being repatriated to become editor of motor racing magazine Auto Action. You should have seen the look on his face when he ran into me.

“Hi, Roland, what are you doing here?” I teased. Dane visibly blanched, his cover is blown. No-one else in the media knew him and I was the last person he was expecting to see at the rustic Ipswich track.

Dane’s presence was a short walk to a major news story that Triple Eight Race Engineering, a leading squad in the BTCC since 1997 and dominant from 2001, was looking to establish a V8 Supercars operation. Two months later, Triple Eight was on the grid at the Sandown 500.

Nearly two decades on, Dane is the most successful Supercars team owner ever, winning 200 races, eight drivers’ titles, nine teams’ crowns and eight Bathurst 1000s.

At the end of this season, he is retiring as team principal, handing over the reins to Jamie Whincup, Red Bull Ampol Racing’s record seven-time V8 champion who is in his final full-time campaign as a driver.