The Inside Line: The High-Speed World Of A V8 Supercar Legend Driver

By Craig Lowndes and Mark Fogarty

Strap yourself in, hold on tight, and find out exactly what it's like to be Australia's best-loved race driver!
Craig Lowndes is Australia's favourite racing driver.A three-time V8 Supercar champion, four-time winner of the Bathurst 1000 and recipient of the Barry Sheene Medal two years in a row, Craig is one of the most successful drivers in the history of Australian motor racing. Loved and respected off the track too, Craig is known as a great bloke, a devoted family man and cattle farmer. He is a role model and inspiration to Australians from all walks of life.this gripping overview of Craig's high-speed world provides fascinating insights into the triumphs and challenges of elite motor sport. Craig shares his feelings about his controversial switch from Ford to Holden, a change received with mixed emotions by fans; he explains what it is really like behind the wheel of a V8 Supercar and introduces us to his team; shares his views on the sport and how it is evolving; reveals the man behind the national sporting celebrity; and much more.Candid and action-packed, tHE INSIDE LINE takes you behind the scenes and behind the wheel with a V8 Supercar legend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jan 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9780730496236

Book preview

1

THE DECISION

Towards the middle of 2009, during my fifth year with the Triple Eight Team, I started thinking about renewing my deal with them. I was out of contract at the end of the season, but didn’t want to wait until the last minute to negotiate. If I’m happy with a team, it’s in everyone’s interests to re-sign early and get it out of the way, so that rumours and speculation don’t become a distraction.

After five years with Triple Eight, I was comfortable because I’d had a lot of success and I enjoyed working with everyone there. It suited me to start talks about a new contract from 2010. There wasn’t much to think about, really, but while I was leaning heavily in the direction of staying, I had to consider other options. I don’t get directly involved in these sorts of discussions until I’m ready to sign. The negotiating I leave to my manager, David Segal, who knows me, knows what I need and, most importantly, knows how to handle these sometimes tricky talks.

A couple of rival teams had approached David, sounding him out on whether I’d be interested in exploring a change. Those discussions didn’t get very far, though, because the other teams just weren’t right for me and didn’t offer the complete package that Triple Eight did. So, I was heading well down the path to staying where I was and, short of some unexpected breakdown in the negotiations with my team boss, Roland Dane, it was looking good. In this game, stability is important and Triple Eight has a proven track record of fielding competitive cars race-in, race-out. I wasn’t seeing any persuasive argument to move, to be honest, but it’s always nice to have options.

This all started going on around May 2009 and I talked through the pros and the cons with David and my wife, Nat. It wasn’t just about money, although that’s obviously always going to be factor. It was more about my prospects of continuing to win races and contend for championships, which is really what matters when everything is said and done.

I have an idea of my worth to an organisation and I want to command the best salary possible, but my view is that being in a competitive car is the priority. Everything else follows from that. Sounds pretty basic, I know, but you’d be surprised how many drivers have compromised their careers by chasing the big bucks ahead of a good team with great cars. Okay, that’s easy for me to say at this stage of my career; however, I’ve never knowingly signed with a team just on the basis of how much they can pay me. My decisions without exception have been in the belief that I can win races and titles.

Having said that, I had to see what else was out there and try to get a feel for the latest market. I’ll admit there was interest expressed by teams from both sides of the Blue and Red – Ford and Holden – divide. And it would have been silly not to have a look at what was available and, to be frank, what sort of money experienced V8 drivers were commanding. But the fact is, there was nothing close to tempting on any level, least of all a culture dedicated to success on the same scale as exists at Triple Eight. The only unknown about staying put was what type of car I’d be running in 2010. There had been rumours around the place that Roland was considering switching from Ford to Holden, a big deal in V8 Supercar racing.

Under the current rules, there are only two makes involved and supporters are firmly divided between Ford and Holden. That Blue versus Red rivalry is part of the fabric of the sport and changing sides, especially if you’re a driver with an established fan following, creates a lot of aggro. It’s worse than star AFL or NRL players changing teams because V8s is a two-horse race. It’s Holden versus Ford: you can race a Commodore or a Falcon and that’s it. That may change in 2012 when the next-generation V8 Supercars start racing, and the series will be open to other makes. But right now – and in the foreseeable future, I reckon – you either bleed blue or red as far as the hard-core fans are concerned. Among a large section of supporters, it really is that tribal.

The possibility of Triple Eight changing from Ford to Holden was no small thing. But during our negotiations, Roland was consistent in his assurance that he hadn’t done a deal with Holden and the further along we went, the more likely it looked that he’d stick with the FG Falcons that TeamVodafone was running so successfully.

In the meantime, Roland wanted to re-sign the drivers and major sponsor Vodafone by mid-2009 to ensure continuity. Vodafone, too, I think wanted to know that my teammate Jamie Whincup, the reigning double V8 champion, and I were staying.

I suppose, it’s fair to say we were playing tit for tat. I think the sponsors wanted to sign up, but were waiting to make sure the drivers were secured. Equally, as drivers we wanted to make sure the team was in a secure financial position, so we weren’t going to sign up until the sponsors signed up. It was a bit of a Catch 22 situation and I think it was probably a more stressful time for Roland than for us. But the more Nat, David and I talked about it the more we convinced ourselves that Triple Eight was the right choice regardless of what kind of car we’d be racing.

When it came down to it, we asked ourselves: ‘Are we still happy to drive with the team, regardless of whether it goes to Holden?’ And the answer to that question was, ‘Yes’. The team had the qualities – stability, location and obviously the desire and the means to win races – that we were looking for, and had been looking for, for a long time. With all those boxes ticked, really, in the end it wasn’t a huge question about whether the team was going to Holden or not, it was just a question of whether we were happy with them. And we were. The only real ramification of the team moving to Holden was that it would mean the end of our personal relationship with Ford, but we decided we could live with that because the benefits outweighed ending that successful association. But there was still a big ‘if’ at that stage and although David had begun preliminary renewal discussions with Ford, they were put on the back burner until we did a new deal with Triple Eight and Roland decided which kind of car we’d have in 2010.

This all went on for about six weeks or so, but was pretty much resolved in our minds by early June, when David and I met for an early breakfast in Chapel Street, South Yarra. I was in Melbourne to fulfil some sponsor commitments, which meant getting together at 6 am. It was then I told David that I definitely wanted to re-sign and left it to him to sort out the details with Roland. After some typically hard bargaining between the two of them, both of whom are fastidious to a fault, I signed a three-year agreement.

Roland managed to get all his ducks in a row and soon after the simultaneous re-signing of Jamie and me, Vodafone as team title sponsor for a further three years was announced. This ensured the three key components of the success base the team had established over the previous two-and-a-half seasons would remain in place.

Now all we needed to know was whether we’d be sticking with the proven FG Falcons or swapping to VE Commodores, which would mean literally walking into the Lion’s den. The possibility of going up against the Holden Racing Team (HRT), billed as ‘The Official Factory Racing Team of Holden’, would be challenging and a bit daunting, even for a crack outfit like Triple Eight. And my gut feeling was that as every day went past, Roland came closer to doing a deal with Holden. It just made so much sense. He was in a position where he had one manufacturer wanting to support his team, which was Holden, versus the other manufacturer that wasn’t supporting us at all. You see, even though we were racing Falcons, Ford wasn’t backing the team. The company had restructured its V8 sponsorship, cutting back its direct financial support to just two teams from 2009: Ford Performance Racing (FPR), the Blue Oval’s equivalent of Holden Racing Team, and Stone Brothers Racing. The casualties of that cutback were Dick Johnson Racing, which had been supported by Ford since the early 1980s, and Triple Eight, which had significant factory backing when I joined in ’05.

You reckon the Ford fans weren’t outraged by that! There was such an uproar that Broadmeadows rediscovered the depth of partisan feeling out there among the faithful. And it got even uglier when Roland decided that if Ford wasn’t going to kick the can, he’d strip all Ford identification from the cars. That is how and why we ended up with feral-looking pink pig badges on the grilles in place of the normal Ford oval. The cars were dubbed ‘Hogsters’ in deference to one of the team’s sponsors, the Hog’s Breath Cafe chain, whose logo is a pink hog with large tusks. All during the season, the team – and especially Roland – never referred to the racecars as Fords or Falcons. They were simply the TeamVodafone cars.

The rumblings continued and by the end of June, I had an inkling that he was probably 80/20 in favour of committing to Holden. And sure enough, not long after I got a call from David, who’d just heard from Roland that he’d signed an agreement with Holden to switch to Commodores in 2010. David’s words were, in effect: Right, well, I’ve got some news. The Holden thing’s going to happen, here’s how it’s going to play, here are the ramifications we need to think about. We talked through the implications, both at a personal and a business level. He also gave me a bit of time to take it all in and we left it for a couple of days before I called him back. But nothing changed in my mind – and, anyway, there was nothing I could do about it because by then it was Roland’s decision alone. My initial reaction to the news was excitement and that didn’t diminish on reflection. My next reaction, I have to confess, was that Roland had taken the best deal, which is exactly what you’d expect from him. He may be passionate about racing, but he’s also very enthusiastic about making a profit. The only thing he hates more than losing races is losing money!

I was excited because I’d had great results early in my career with Holden. It doesn’t get much better than three championships and a Bathurst 1000 victory, which is what I’d achieved when I was at HRT. Although proud of what I’d done with Ford since I’d staged my defection in 2001 – that Bathurst trifecta with Jamie from 2006–8 was a huge highlight, of course, and Ford was rapt – I was disappointed and frustrated that I hadn’t been able to win a V8 championship for them.

However, for me to go back to racing a Holden was an enticing prospect when all was said and done. I was looking forward to having a new challenge and also to renewing some old acquaintances at Holden from my HRT days. The enormity of the change honestly didn’t worry me. In my mind, it was a matter of determining if the team was still capable of producing race-winning cars. And that was the question that was always put to me by David Segal and Nat when we were discussing staying with Triple Eight. It was never about whether we were going forward with Holden, it was about whether we were happy with the team. Thinking back now, there was probably a chance to go drive for other teams and stay with the Ford brand. But, again, that still led back to the same question: are those teams willing and capable of building race-winning cars? My gut feeling then, and still is today, was that we were with the team best-equipped to do that.

The only other teams that have the facilities to rival TeamVodafone are HRT and FPR – both of whose main funding comes directly from the respective factories – so it’d be a fair guess that they are the only others I would consider if I weren’t at Triple Eight. Whether they have the same capability is the question. HRT probably has, but FPR has been hot and cold for a number of years now – and that would be a concern. Along with their lack of progress, one of the main reasons I left FPR at the end of ’04 and joined Triple Eight was to be close to the team. Living in Queensland, location was very important and Triple Eight is only about an hour away from home, meaning I can have regular personal contact with everyone there.

Word got out on the grapevine about our switch to Holden about five days before the official announcement. In this business nothing big stays secret for long and we were all under strict instructions not to encourage the speculation, no matter how well informed, by even so much as hinting that confirmation was coming.

Roland’s three-year agreement to race Commodores with direct factory support was announced at a hastily arranged media launch in the atrium-like foyer of Holden’s headquarters at Fishermans Bend. I wasn’t able to attend because I was still under contract to Ford until the end of the year, so it was left to Roland Dane and Jamie Whincup to fly the team flag. In fact, because of my tie to Ford, I couldn’t get involved in any of the build-up to the changeover until 1 January 2010.

The fact that Roland wasn’t able to keep Jamie and me in the loop while he negotiated with us and Holden at roughly the same time gives you an idea of how delicate those talks were and how close it was to the announcement before the deal was actually signed. I learned later that Roland had been in discussion with Holden’s motorsport manager Simon McNamara for about four months – going back to late March/early April, which is when I recall the rumours, well, more like whispers, began.

Roland actually waited until the dust had settled on General Motors’ bankruptcy in the United States and Holden’s future had been secured before entering into serious talks. Funnily enough, he’d always wanted to race Holdens in Australia because of his GM connection in the UK, where the original Triple Eight operation was very successful racing Vauxhalls in the British Touring Car Championship. He actually tried to buy HRT back in early 2003 when the team changed hands in the wake of the collapse of the Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) group. Holden rescued HRT from the administrators and then sold it on to their star driver Mark Skaife, which is why Roland and his partners ended up buying a Ford team later that year.

Anyway, once it was all out in the open, we had to start dealing with the fallout – the reactions of the fans and Ford. We’d discussed a strategy for both, and David implemented them to coincide with Holden’s and TeamVodafone’s announcements. We expected a bit of flak from my fans because, as I explained before, devoted followers of V8 Supercars can be very one-eyed about supporting Holden or Ford. Luckily, this time it was the team making the switch and taking me with it, so I avoided the angst that accompanied my defection from Holden to Ford back in ’01. That actually got a bit out of hand, but this time there were no deranged reactions to me crossing back over to Holden.

The news went up on my fan club website and there was a predictable outcry from a small minority of members. Fortunately, the vast majority follow me rather than the brand of car I drive, so very few felt betrayed. There were some accusations that I knew about the change to Holden when I re-signed with the team. To try to reassure those fan club members who felt disaffected, David wrote what he described as ‘a firm missive’, spelling out the facts of what had happened, and posted it on my website. Basically, the message was: it was out of our hands. After that, it all settled down and for the Ford supporters we lost, it looked like we gained a lot more Holden fans, who were overjoyed at the prospect of seeing me back behind the wheel in a Commodore.

Telling Ford was tough because I’d had such a great relationship with the company. The senior executives at Broadmeadows, including the company president Marin Burela, were disappointed but appreciative of my commitment to work hard for them right through to the end of my contract on 31 December 2009.

And work hard is what I did, despite the fact that Triple Eight’s fractious relationship with Ford after being left out in the sponsorship cold often made the association awkward. Being a Ford ambassador racing an unbranded Falcon put me in a difficult and sometimes sticky situation. I was still obligated to visit Ford dealerships and make appearances at Ford functions at race meetings.

So, here I was carrying different shirts for different events – one branded Ford (I was still carrying the Ford logos on my race suit) and another TeamVodafone – because I couldn’t turn up at a Ford function with a race team shirt, or vice versa. It became a juggling act – and at times a slightly stressful one – to make sure that I was in the right shirt at the right time, or the right dress code for the right event. Having said that, Roland had a perfect understanding of the position I was in. He was supportive of what I needed to do, not only during race weekends, but at other outside appearances.

I had, and still have, a very good relationship with the people at Ford but at times it got uncomfortable. Going to Broadmeadows and walking through the factory without Jamie resulted in me being quizzed by unhappy Ford employees about the why and the how of what had happened. There’d obviously been some miscommunication because they believed the team had done the dirty on Ford. But it was really a case of the Ford management in mid-2008 deciding not to continue sponsoring Triple Eight in the future. This was gutting for Roland, me and everyone in the team. Triple Eight had done a lot of the hard development work on the FG Falcon racecar, which was very successful straight out of the box – at least it was in our team’s hands – winning a lot of races and the Teams Championship in 2008 with Jamie.

While I was looking forward to returning to my Holden racing roots, I was sad to be leaving the Ford family. I’d switched sides, amid much controversy as the first high-profile driver in the modern V8 Supercar era to change allegiance, in ’01 after failing to resolve an on-going dispute with the management of HRT. I didn’t want to leave Holden, but I did want to get out of HRT. And although I put a lot of effort into retaining the connection with the Lion, unfortunately, I couldn’t find a Holden team that measured up to my expectations of potential success. I worked pretty hard in 2000 to stay with Holden in a different team, but it couldn’t be done. Back then the late Geoff Polites, who had a passion for motor racing, was the president of Ford Australia. He orchestrated a deal for me to drive for a new Ford team, but that’s another story… The upshot is that I spent nine years racing Falcons and representing Ford, and, while the results weren’t as good as they could or should have been, it was a great partnership. A lot of friendships were forged in the time I was with Ford. And despite