Second-generation driver Tim Blanchard stepped back from full-time driving in 2019 to focus on overseeing his own entry, and will make his 13th Bathurst start in 2023.
Second-generation driver Tim Blanchard stepped back from full-time driving in 2019 to focus on overseeing his own entry, and will make his 13th Bathurst start in 2023.
He shuffled within the BJR camp to join Macauley Jones in steering his own CoolDrive car at Bathurst in 2020.
Blanchard purchased the Racing Entitlements Contract underpinning his car for 2017 with a view to running his own show in the future.
That became reality in 2021, with Blanchard fielding a Mustang for Tim Slade.
All up, he completed five full-time seasons as a driver and three with BJR, prior to returning to co-driver status.
A karting champion, Blanchard won the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 2007, then finished second in the British Championship the following season.
Blanchard made his Supercars debut in the Dunlop Super2 Series in 2010, behind the wheel of an ex-Craig Lowndes Falcon for Sonic Motor Racing, finishing as runner-up to Steve Owen.
He claimed the Mike Kable Young Gun Award for the best first-year Supercar driver, and made his main game co-driving debut at Phillip Island alongside Greg Murphy.
The Victorian paired Super2 and enduro campaigns in 2011 and ’12, then filled in for an injured Todd Kelly in the final rounds of ’12.
Blanchard stepped into Supercars as a full-time driver in 2013 with Dick Johnson Racing, but left at the end of a difficult season.
After pairing with Russell Ingall in Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport's Commodore for the 2014 PIRTEK Enduro Cup, Blanchard returned full-time for LDM in 2015 before nabbing the third seat at BJR in 2016.