23Red Racing
Team(s): Milwaukee Racing
Manufacturer: Ford
Team Principals: Phil Munday (60%) Lucas Dumbrell (40%)
Chassis: Ford Falcon FG X
Debut: 2009
Drivers’ Championships: –
Driver: Will Davison (Milwaukee Racing)
A brief history
Established ahead of the 2018 season, 23Red Racing is the new look team born out of Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport.
Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport was established in 2010 when former racer Lucas Dumbrell purchased a Racing Entitlements Contract from the now-defunct Sprint Gas Racing and arranged an alliance with Walkinshaw Racing, who provided a car, engines and technical support for the team’s first two seasons. In buying the Racing Entitlements Contract (REC), Dumbrell became the youngest team owner in V8 Supercars.
After running an ex-Triple Eight Commodore in 2012 (acquired from Paul Morris Motorsports), the team expanded to two Triple Eight-built Commodore VF entries for 2013 following the purchase of Paul Morris’ REC.
The Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport team then returned to a single car operation following a major restructure in the off-season in 2014 with 2005 V8 Supercar champion and two-time Bathurst 1000 winner Russell Ingall behind the wheel of the Repair Management Australia-backed Commodore – his 19th and last full-time season in the main game.
Unfortunately, the team only rarely got up the sharp end of the field through odd tyre strategies and didn’t find much success in 2014. Ingall retired at the end of the season to take up a TV role with no wins.
Having regained control of its second REC and returned to a two-car outfit, Nick Percat and Tim Blanchard joined the team for its 2015 campaign. Percat was then again retained for 2016, this time joined by Andre Heimgartner in the team’s second entry. Success came quickly through pure luck when in the rain shortened Clipsal 500 Sunday race, Percat was the first car on the road to get in the minimum drop of fuel, a technicality that caught many other teams off guard. This gave Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport its first win though the rest of the season didn’t net any more impressive results, other than Percat and co-driver Cameron McConville grabbing the last spot on the podium at Bathurst.
Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport made history in 2017 giving its former Dunlop Series driver and 16-year old Western Australian Alex Rullo a drive in the main game – the youngest driver in the history of Supercars. Matt Chahda was also announced as the team’s second driver at the season launch but his superlicence was blocked by CAMS, leaving the team in limbo. Taz Douglas stepped in for the first round in Adelaide, just one of seven drivers who raced for the minnow team during 2017 (Rullo, Douglas, Matthew Brabham, Alex Davison, Cameron McConville, Jack Perkins, Aaren Russell).
It was a torrid season for LDM, consistently finishing last or not at all with its ageing Commodores (built by Triple Eight ahead of the 2013 season). With two rounds of his maiden Supercars season remaining, Rullo’s campaign with Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport came to an end after the team informed the driver at the Gold Coast 600 that there was no room for him in its 2018 plans. The team then announced it was scaling down its operation to one car with its second REC sold to Tickford Racing to run Richie Stanaway.
2018
Following a 60 per cent buy-in from businessman and long-time sponsor Phil Munday, the team has rebranded as 23Red Racing for 2018 with the team switching from Holden to Ford and fielding the ex-Tickford Racing-built FGX Falcon that won the 2017 Sandown 500.
2018 sees Will Davison join the newly formed team from Tekno Autosports with Milwaukee Tools taking up naming rights sponsorship in a three-year deal. The Milwaukee Racing team will have a close technical alliance with Prodrive, including a deal to lease engines from the four-car squad. Former Holden Racing Team and Nissan Motorsport team manager Rob Crawford takes up the role as crew chief.