Saturday Sleuthing: JR's Wild QR Ride

The V8 Supercars Championship is back in action this weekend at the Coates Hire Ipswich 360 at Queensland Raceway. Despite it being a track with a lack of elevation with a plain and simple layout, it’s one that generally tends to add plenty of memorable moments to the history books of the Championship.

Many remember the infamous ‘win in the wet’ by Steven Johnson and Paul Radisich in the 2001 Queensland 500, while other V8 Supercar fans remember a scary pit fire involving the CAT Ford of John Bowe.

There was the dramatic finish in 2002 as Greg Murphy’s Kmart Commodore slowed within sight of victory in the 500-kilometre race and could only watch as David Besnard flashed by, while many also recall ‘The Enforcer’ Russell Ingall shedding a tear on the podium a few years ago!

But today on Saturday Sleuthing we look at the biggest crash ever seen in V8 Supercars at the Ipswich circuit – the 2005 barrel roll of the late, great Jason Richards’ Dodo/Tasman Motorsport Commodore.

A touch from Paul Morris on the exit of turn three launched the #3 Holden sideways across the (thankfully now removed) exit kerb, tripping the car over into a seemingly endless series of rolls and all but destroying the car.

Richards emerged dazed but otherwise OK, save for a cracked rib, but the car was a mess.

So where did that car end up? Our V8 Sleuth Aaron Noonan has perhaps a closer connection to this car than most given he was actually the media manager for the 2005 season!

The car in question was new at the start of that season, the second built by Tasman Motorsport from a Paris Acott chassis and the first since the team had moved from Sydney to Melbourne into the Harrop Engineering facility in Preston.

Jason Richards drove it all season as the #3 Dodo entry, debuting at the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park. After its Queensland accident, the Tasman team put in major hours to have it repaired in time for the next round at Oran Park (see image from the Sleuth’s own files).

But it was at the endurance races where the car shone as Richards and Jamie Whincup finished third at the Sandown 500 – scoring both their own and Tasman’s first V8 Supercar podium finish. And the V8 Sleuth can indeed confirm that the post-race party in Melbourne was rather large – from memory!

They nearly pulled off a big upset at Bathurst; leading the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in the final stint before Mark Skaife managed to get by Richards, thus relegating the Dodo car to a still-popular runner-up result.

It was the first of Richards’ three podium finishes in The Great Race and the first of four in a row by Whincup (the next three being wins alongside Craig Lowndes).

The Tasman team took on a new look in 2006 with a ‘Tassie Tiger’ added to the flanks of their cars and the naming rights sponsorship changing on the rear flanks over the season at different races.

Richards remained in the same chassis and won his first – and sadly only – V8SC race in the reverse grid race at Winton that season.

He and Andrew Jones drove the car in the enduros, though it ended up crashed out at Bathurst after earlier going on a wild ride airborne through Caltex Chase.

If you reckon Scott Pye went a long way in his wild ride at Barbagallo this year – dig out the old footage and see how far you reckon Richards flew!

Richards debuted a new car at Symmons Plains, so this car was transferred to Jones, who ran it for the remainder of the season as the #23 entry.Tasman built two new VE Commodores for 2007, so this car then was moved on to sister organisation Greg Murphy Racing and became current Dunlop Series leader Dale Wood’s car in what was then known as the Fujitsu Series.

He ran it that year in what was his rookie season in V8 Supercars (including a podium finish at Bathurst) and again drove it in 2008, albeit in a black and yellow livery rather than the orange and black, ex-Tasman livery it ran in ’07.

It was then retained as a spare chassis by GMR and was sold to Western Australia in 2011 to be used as a track day and state level racecar by its owner.

It returned to the East Coast this year after being purchased by Sydney DVS driver Jim Pollicina, with Sam Walter (who ironically drove a sister car alongside Wood in DVS in 2007 and 2008) driving it in the V8 Touring Car Series at Winton recently in a bid to keep his race miles up in his return season of racing in the Dunlop Series.

Pollicina retains the car in Sydney and tells the V8 Sleuth it’s available for lease for the V8 Touring Car Series (run on the Shannons Nationals bill for ex-V8 Supercars) alongside his existing ex-Richards VZ (the car ‘JR’ debuted at Symmons Plains in 2006 as mentioned above).

It’s great to see this special car back on the racetrack this season – hopefully we see it returned to its 2005 distinctive Dodo livery somewhere down the track too – and fingers crossed no one goes on such a wild ride at ‘QR’ this weekend as ‘JR’ did back in 2005!

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