Briggs Motor Sport was an Australian

motor racing Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...

team which has represented Queensland based businessman John Briggs in motor racing. The team has competed in

Sports Sedans A sports sedan (also known as sports saloon in British English) is a subjective term for a sedan car that is designed to have sporting performance or handling characteristics. History The term was originally introduced in the 1930s an ...

Australian GT The Australian GT Championship is a CAMS-sanctioned national title for drivers of GT cars, held annually from 1960 to 1963, from 1982 to 1985 and from 2005. Each championship up to and including the 1963 title was contested over a single race a ...

Formula Holden Formula Holden was an Australian open wheel racing category introduced in 1989. History Known during its development as Formula Australia, it was initially for chassis constructed from aluminium only, running a 3.8-litre Buick V6 engine as ...

, and most notably as a touring car team competing in the

V8 Supercar Championship Series The Supercars Championship is a touring car racing category in Australia, running as an International Series under Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) regulations, governing the sport. Supercars events take place in all Australian ...

. The team last competed in historic motor racing and the

Australian GT Championship The Australian GT Championship is a Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, CAMS-sanctioned national title for drivers of GT cars, held annually from 1960 to 1963, from 1982 to 1985 and from 2005. Each championship up to and including the 1963 ...

but was folded at the end of the 2009 season.

Early years

John Briggs, a

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

er who relocated to

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

in the early 1980s due to work commitments, drove a

Repco Holden Repco is an Australian automotive engineering/retailer company. Its name is an abbreviation of Replacement Parts Company and was for many years known for reconditioning engines and for specialized manufacturing, for which they gained a high r ...

powered

Matich A50 The Matich name was applied to a series of sports racing cars and open wheel racing cars produced in Australia between 1967 and 1974 under the direction of Sydney-based racing driver and engineer Frank Matich.The Macquarie Dictionary of Motoring, 19 ...

Formula 5000 Formula 5000 (or F5000) was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars tha ...

to a surprise second place at the

1978 Australian Grand Prix The 1978 Australian Grand Prix was a motor race open to cars complying with Australian Formula 1,Conditions for Australian Titles, 1978 CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, pages 84 to 86 (commonly referred to as Formula 5000 cars). It was held on 10 Se ...

held at

Sandown Raceway Sandown International Raceway is a motor racing circuit in the suburb of Springvale in Melbourne, Victoria, approximately south east of the city centre. Sandown is considered a power circuit with its " drag strip" front and back straights be ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. Briggs finished two laps behind race winner

Graham McRae Graham McRae (5 March 1940 – 4 August 2021) was a racing driver from New Zealand. He achieved considerable success in Formula 5000 racing, winning the Tasman Series each year from 1971 to 1973, and also the 1972 L&M Continental 5000 Champio ...

after many of the pre-race favourites race such as Kevin Bartlett,

Alfredo Costanzo Alfredo Costanzo (born 3 January 1943, in Calabria, Italy) is a retired Italian born Australian racing driver. From 1980 to 1983 Costanzo won four Australian Drivers' Championships in a row, equalling the record set by Bib Stillwell from 1962 t ...

Vern Schuppan Vernon John Schuppan (born 19 March 1943) is a retired Australian motor racing driver. Schuppan drove in various categories, participating in Formula One, the Indianapolis 500 and most successfully in sports car racing. Although he consider ...

Garrie Cooper Garrie Clifford Cooper (22 December 1935 - 25 April 1982) was the founder of the highly successful Elfin Sports Cars and a competitive racing driver in his own right, winning the 1968 Singapore Grand Prix, the 1968 Australian 1½ Litre Champi ...

, and reigning Australian Drivers' Champion John McCormack, had all experienced various problems or had crashed out of the race. Briggs raced a

Chevrolet Monza The Chevrolet Monza is a subcompact automobile produced by Chevrolet for the 1975 through 1980 model years. The Monza is based on the Chevrolet Vega, sharing its wheelbase, width, and standard inline-four engine. The car was designed to accommoda ...

(Dekon chassis #1001) for its owner, John Roberts, which was formerly run in the American-based

IMSA GT Championship IMSA GT was a sports car racing series organized by International Motor Sports Association. Races took place primarily in the United States, and occasionally in Canada. History The series was founded in 1969 by John and Peggy Bishop, and Bill F ...

by Dekon part owner and expatriate Australian Horst Kwech. Roberts had the Monza re-built by Adelaide-based company K&A Engineering for Briggs and he raced it in the

Australian Sports Sedan Championship The National Series for Sports Sedans, formerly the Australian Sports Sedan Championship, is a CAMS sanctioned national motor racing title for drivers of cars complying with Australian Sports Sedan regulations. This class, essentially a silhou ...

. He later switched from the Monza to an ex-

JPS Team BMW JPS Team BMW is a former Australian motor racing team that ran from 1981–1987. The team's main focus was touring car racing but also ran in sports sedans and GT cars as well. The team, under the management of former British Touring Car Cham ...

318i Turbo in the

, before moving back into

open wheelers An open-wheel single-seater (often known as formula car) is a car with the wheels outside the car's main body, and usually having only one seat. Open-wheel cars contrast with street cars, sports cars, stock cars, and touring cars, which have thei ...

with a Ralt RT21

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

. K&A Engineering ran Briggs in both vehicles. Briggs again competed in Sports Sedans during the early-mid 1990s, winning the 1996 Australian Sports Sedan Championship with a

Honda Prelude The Honda Prelude is a car produced by Japanese car manufacturer Honda from 1978 until 2001. The two-door coupe was loosely derived from the Honda Accord, and spanned five generations. The Prelude was used by Honda to introduce the Japanese Honda r ...

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...

V8 Supercars

Ford Falcon EL of Briggs Motor Sport (1999)

Briggs Motor Sport made its debut in the

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

in a

Ford EF Falcon The Ford Falcon (EF) was a full-size car that was produced by Ford Australia from 1994 to 1996. It was the fourth significantly updated iteration of the fifth generation of the Falcon and also included the Ford Fairmont (EF)—the luxury-oriented ...

for team owner John Briggs, in 1998 it campaigned an EL Falcon, a year later it expanded to a two car team with John Briggs driving an AU Falcon and executive of the team's leading sponsor, Supercheap Auto, Bob Thorn in the older EL Falcon from the year before. In September 1999, Briggs bolstered his operation after purchasing the

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

based PAE Motorsport team, absorbing the

Caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

backed Ford of John Bowe into the team. The team ran a single car for the next few seasons, the team sacking Bowe after Bathurst in 2001, replacing him with emerging New Zealand driver

Simon Wills Simon Wills (born 3 October 1976 in Auckland, New Zealand) is a former racing driver who currently runs a graphic design business. Racing career Formula cars Wills finished runner up in the 1995 New Zealand Formula Ford Championship. He had ...

. In 2002 the team expanded to three cars with Betta Electrical Fords for veteran

Tony Longhurst Anthony Lawrence Longhurst (born 1 October 1957 in Sydney) is an Australian racing driver and former Australian Champion water skier. He is most noted for his career in the Australian Touring Car Championship and V8 Supercar series. Longhurst is ...

and Brazilian open wheel driver

Max Wilson Max Wilson (born August 22, 1972 in Hamburg, West Germany) is a racing driver of Brazilian parentage. Racing career Junior formulae Wilson started his motor racing career in 1985 in go-karts. He moved into single-seaters in 1993, when he was o ...

. Both drivers were replaced in 2003 with

Paul Radisich Paul Radisich (born 9 October 1962, in Auckland) is a retired New Zealand racing driver and businessman of Croat origin. He has competed in saloon cars for many years — both European-style tourers and the V8 Supercars of Australia and New ...

and

Dean Canto Dean Justin Canto (born 24 September 1980) is a multiple-championship winning Australian motor racing driver. Best noted as a Supercars driver, Canto was the inaugural winner of the second-tier V8 Supercar development series in 2000, and the fir ...

for the 2003 season but by August, Briggs had sold the V8 Supercar operation to British outfit

Triple Eight Race Engineering Triple Eight Race Engineering, (branded as Red Bull Ampol Racing) is an Australian motor racing team competing in the Supercars Championship. The team has been the only Brisbane based V8 Supercar team since its formation, originally operating ...

, to establish an Australian arm of the race team led by

Roland Dane Roland William Surrey Dane (born 17 October 1956) is an Irish-Australian automotive businessman who is best known for co-founding motorsport teams Triple Eight Racing in Britain and Triple Eight Race Engineering in Australia, of which he was team ...

Derek Warwick Derek Stanley Arthur Warwick (born 27 August 1954) is a British former professional racing driver from England, who lives in Jersey. He raced for many years in Formula One, collecting four podiums but never winning a Grand Prix. He did, however, ...

and Ian Harrison. Briggs stepped back from professional racing at this point and spent several years away from the sport before investing in some historic racing cars, highlighted by the return of the 1985 Veskanda-

sports car to race tracks in 2007. Since then Briggs has expanded his operation into the Australian GT Championship, driving and importing Moslers. After a diagnosis of prostate cancer, Briggs recently announced his retirement from competitive motorsports. He then sold the VesKanda to

based racer Paul Stubber, who would take the car to drive in the Historic

Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for touring cars and ''Group B'' for GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 special production cars (closed top touri ...

sports car races held in Europe during 2012.

References

{{reflist

External links

Australian GT Championship profile
Australian auto racing teams Auto racing teams established in 1997 Auto racing teams disestablished in 2003 Sports teams in Queensland Supercars Championship teams 1997 establishments in Australia 2003 disestablishments in Australia