2006 – “The Champ and the Rookie”

•    V8 Supercar rookie James Courtney debuts in the JELD-WEN Motorsport Falcon at the Adelaide Clipsal 500 street circuit with big shoes to fill.
•    The 3UP Ride Car project continues to grow and is piloted by Ford hero Glen Seton at race tracks around the country.
•    Ingall takes 3rd on the podium at the international Pukekohe round in the #1 Caltex Facing Falcon.
•    Bahrain International Circuit replaces Shanghai on the series calendar.
•    Glen Seton is named co-driver to Courtney and Youlden continues to partner Ingall in the Sandown and Bathurst enduros.
•    After a bad start to the season Courtney manages to turn results around to finish 3rd overall at Sydney’s Oran Park.
•    SBR finishes 3rd and 4th at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, the race between team mates coming down to the line, Courtney edging out Ingall for the podium by 0.005 of a second.
•    James Courtney is name Mike Cable Rookie of the Year, the third time an SBR driver has won the award.

                

Comments from Ross

“We were unable to provide Mark Winterbottom with a seat in the main game back in 2004 so we ‘loaned' him to Larkham Motorsport with the option to look at taking him back for the 2006 season, but with a promise to Larkham to leave him with the team we explored other options when it came to replacing Marcos. We knew Marks potential and it is no surprise to Jimmy or I how well he is doing in the series at FPR.

There were high expectations when it came to James filling Marcos' seat in the #4 car. The team tried to manage it as best we could but it was tough to ignore the pressure having won the three championships in a row beforehand.

Clipsal was hard on James as he struggled with the heat which resulted in a big crash on the Saturday. The boys worked all night to repair the car only to have James involved in another big crash on the Sunday. Adelaide was a big learning curve for James.

The highlight of the year was the 3rd and 4th at Bathurst, after 161 laps it came down to the line for the podium between Russell and James.”