Garry Rogers Motorsport

Garry Rogers Motorsport

Team(s): Wilson Security Racing GRM
Manufacturer: Holden
Team Principal: Garry Rogers
Chassis: Holden Commodore ZB
Debut: 1996
Drivers’ Championships:
Drivers: Garth Tander and James Golding (Wilson Security GRM)

A brief history

It all started back in 1963 when Garry Rogers began a lifelong involvement in motorsport by racing Appendix J Holden’s. Now five decades on, Garry Rogers Motorsport has become one of Australia’s most professional and successful motorsport organisations.

Garry Rogers Motorsport has had an enormous impact on Australian motorsport, including Garry being instrumental in the development of many of Australia’s top drivers who have been exposed to the GRM way, including Steven Richards, Garth Tander, Jason Bargwanna, Jamie Whincup, Cameron McConville, Lee Holdsworth and Michael Caruso.

In 2013, Garry Roger’s 50th year in motorsport, Volvo and its Swedish performance arm Polestar announced its entry in the 2014 V8 Supercars Championship with Garry Rogers Motorsport running the fully-backed factory team under the banner of Volvo Polestar Racing.

The Volvo team had a spectacular debut year after Scott McLaughlin took four wins and ten poles across the season. However, unreliability was a teething problem for the team as well as rookie Swede Robert Dahlgren’s lack of speed.

In 2015 the team were expected to be championship contenders in the hands of McLaughlin and new recruit David Wall, but reliability was again the word of the year for the Volvo with McLaughlin unable to convert a good position to a good result on several occasions. Wall struggled with the car, and finished as the only driver in the field not to have had a top 10 result.

For 2016, McLaughlin was joined by James Moffat in the second Volvo. Strong form came early when McLaughlin clean-swept Phillip Island, scoring both poles and both wins. His consistency for the rest of the season saw him place third in the standings. Moffat, however did not enjoy the same amount of luck, frequently struggling in the mid-pack, having James Golding crash his car out of the Sandown 500 and having an engine explode at the Bathurst 1000.

2017 saw Garry Rogers Motorsport revert to Holden after Volvo’s factory motorsport arm Polestar decided not to renew its contract with the series, leaving the team without an engine or chassis. Joining Moffat was Garth Tander who returned to the team where he started his Supercars career nearly two decades ago. Forced into the last-minute switch to Holden hardware, much of the season was spent playing catch up in developing the car. Despite that, Tander at least enjoyed a markedly strong year ending ninth in the points, but for Moffat, the Newcastle 500 would be his last event as a full-time Supercars driver with Garry Rogers Motorsport, returning instead to Tickford Racing as a co-driver.

2018

2018 sees Supercars veteran Garth Tander paired with a brand new teammate. After two seasons in the Dunlop Super2 Series and impressing in two wildcard appearances and in his co-driver duties alongside Tander in the Pirtek Enduro Cup, the team’s latest protégé, James Golding, graduates to a full-time drive replacing the out of favour Moffat in the second GRM Holden.

This time around Garry Rogers Motorsport is significantly better prepared. Work on building two new ZB Commodore chassis’ got underway mid-2017 and the team expect to hit the ground further forward than last year.