Wayne Gardner Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the

Australian Touring Car Championship The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the trophy ...

from 1994 until 1999.

History

Formation

The team was created to further the motor sport career of 1987 World Motorcycle Champion,

Wayne Gardner Wayne Michael Gardner (born 11 October 1959) is an Australian former professional Grand Prix motorcycle and touring car racer. His most notable achievement was winning the 1987 500 cc Motorcycle World Championship, becoming the first Aust ...

who retired from motor cycle racing at the end of the 1992 season. After racing with the

Holden Racing Team Walkinshaw Andretti United is an Australian motor racing team based in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. The team currently fields two Holden ZB Commodores in the Supercars Championship for Nick Percat and Chaz Mostert, along with a Porsche 91 ...

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

, a falling out with team owner

Tom Walkinshaw Thomas Dobbie Thomson Walkinshaw (14 August 1946 – 12 December 2010) was a British racing car driver from Scotland and the founder of the racing team Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). He was also involved in professional rugby union, as owner of ...

saw Gardner leave the team at season's end. In late 1993 Gardner purchased

Bob Forbes Racing Bob Forbes Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship between 1988 and 1993. History Bob Forbes Racing was founded in 1988 by former Australian touring car competitor Bob Forbes. A partia ...

that had competed in the 1993 season with one VP Commodore driven by

Neil Crompton Neil Crompton (born 30 July 1960) is a well-known Supercars presenter and commentator. Racing career Highlights According to the official V8 Supercars website, Crompton has competed in 357 various motor racing events, finishing in the first ...

. Initially operating out of Bob Forbes' Mona Vale premises the team relocated to

Wetherill Park Wetherill Park is a suburb in Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wetherill Park is located 34 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Fairfield. The ...

. Former

Gibson Motorsport Gibson Motorsport was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship from 1981 until 2003, though the team had its roots in Gibson's "Road & Track" team which ran a series of Ford Falcon GTHOs in Series ...

manager Alan Heaphy was appointed team manager. The team had backing from

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. It was an Australian automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter which sold cars under its own marque in Australia. In its last thre ...

and Dunlop.

1994

The team debuted at round 1 of the 1994 championship with a second VP Commodore built to complement Neil Crompton's 1993 car. Gardner and Crompton's combined in the former's #4 car for the endurance races while

Win Percy Winston "Win" Percy (born 28 September 1943, near Tolpuddle, Dorset) is a former motor racing driver from England. Percy was British Touring Car Champion three times, and at the time of his retirement was the most successful non- Antipodean driv ...

and

Russell Ingall Russell Ingall (born 24 February 1964 in London, England) is a former full-time Australian V8 Supercar driver. He won his V8 Supercars title in 2005, and finished second in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2004. Ingall has also won the Bathurst 1000, i ...

raced #7, finishing fifth at the

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most recen ...

1995

Aside from upgrading its cars to VR specifications the team carries on unchanged in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

. Brad Jones joined Percy in the #4 car for the endurance races with Gardner and Crompton sharing #7, finishing fifth and third at the

1996

The team continued unchanged into

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

. Brad Jones filled in for an unavailable Gardner at the Indy support race before Crompton's car was benched due to budget constraints. Jones was joined by Tony Scott for the endurance races in #4 while Gardner and Crompton debuted a new car as #7 finishing 4th at the

1997

For

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 ...

the team switched to

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

tyres and upgraded to VS specifications. Again only running one car now as #7, Gardner won the team's only round at the opening

round Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere * Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the number ...

at Calder Park. Crompton returned for the endurance races with Gardner leading at the

when the engine expired on lap 90. A second car was entered as a customer car for Peter Bradbury,

Paul Stokell Paul Stokell (born 8 March 1968 in Tasmania) is an Australian racing driver. Highly decorated in every category he has competed, Stokell has been a race and multiple championship winning driver in open wheel, sportscar racing and tarmac rallyin ...

and Anthony Tratt as #54. At the end of 1997 Gardner decided to close down the team.

1998

Gardner retained one VS and with

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 ...

based Paris Acott overseeing preparation, ran at selected high-profile events races in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

as #96 teaming with

for the endurance races.

1999

For

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

Gardner purchased a

Perkins Engineering Perkins Engineering was a team contesting the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series, operating as an active racing team between 1986 and 2008. From 2009 onwards, the involvement of Perkins Engineering in the championship wounded back into ...

customer Commodore VT and again entered select high-profile events as #19 with

David Brabham David Brabham (born 5 September 1965) is an Australian professional racing driver and one of the most successful and experienced specialists in sports car racing. He has won three international Sports Car series and is one of four Australians t ...

co-driving at the

. By 1999 Gardner was competing full-time in Japanese GT racing driving factory-supported

Toyota Supra is a sports car and grand tourer manufactured by the Toyota Motor Corporation beginning in 1978. The name "supra" is derived from the Latin prefix, meaning "above", "to surpass" or "go beyond". The initial four generations of the Supra were pr ...

s and at the end of the year sold the car and only appeared in Australia as a hired driver.

Road cars

At the peak of the team's ability Gardner branched out into street car performance tuning, creating a set of bodykit and engine tune modifications for Commodore VR and VSs under the WGR Group A brand. It was to be short-lived with few cars sold.

Drivers

Other than Wayne Gardner, those who drove for WGR include (in order of appearance): *

* Brad Jones *

Tony Scott Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was an English film director and producer. He was known for directing highly successful action and thriller films such as ''Top Gun'' (1986), ''Beverly Hills Cop II'' (1987), ''Day ...

* Peter Bradbury *

Anthony Tratt Anthony Tratt (born November 3, 1965) is a professional racing car driver who grew up in Sydney, NSW, Australia. Background Tratt showed an interest in motorsport from when he was a youngster, at the age of just 10 years, via the Seton family. ...

References

{{reflist Australian auto racing teams Auto parts suppliers of Australia Sports teams in Sydney Supercars Championship teams 1999 disestablishments in Australia 1993 establishments in Australia Auto racing teams established in 1993 Auto racing teams disestablished in 1999