How Supercars looked when Whincup debuted for Triple Eight

The 2022 Repco Supercars Championship grid will be without a big name, with Jamie Whincup retiring at the end of 2021.

For the first time since 2005, a Supercars grid will not feature Whincup in a Triple Eight Race Engineering car.

In 16 seasons between 2006 and 2021, Whincup scored 124 race wins, seven championships and 91 pole positions. All are records.

Whincup made his full-time debut in 2003 for Garry Rogers Motorsport, having completed the 2002 enduros for the team.

Whincup won on his Triple Eight debut

He ran in the 2004 enduros for Perkins Engineering, returned to a full-time seat with Tasman Motorsport in 2005 and moved to Triple Eight in 2006.

The rest, as they say, is history.

A 23-year-old Whincup made his Triple Eight debut on the streets of Adelaide, and duly won on the Sunday.

How did the Supercars Championship look when Whincup arrived on the Triple Eight scene?

The class of 2006. See any familiar faces?

For starters, the series was run under the V8 Supercars guise, with Stone Brothers Racing the three-time reigning champions.

SBR and Russell Ingall scored overall honours in 2005. SBR doesn’t exist as a Supercars team anymore, being reborn as Erebus Motorsport in 2013.

Ingall retired from full-time racing in 2014, but returned at Mount Panorama last month aboard a Triple Eight wildcard.

Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly won the Great Race for the Holden Racing Team in 2005. Both Skaife and Kelly have retired, with the HRT nameplate disappearing at the end of 2020.

Season 2006 gets underway

There were 13 rounds in 2006; two circuits don’t exist anymore (Adelaide and Oran Park) and the championship visited Bahrain for the first time.

Ford’s BA Falcon and Holden’s VZ Commodore were the two models on the 2006 grid, as it was in 2005.

Adelaide hosted the first round of 2006 on March 23-26, with the Ten Network in its final season as the broadcast rights holder before Seven took over in 2007.

Bar Adelaide, Sandown and Bathurst, 2006 also featured three sprint races per weekend. Race 2 of the six sprint rounds before the enduros were reverse grid races. Reverse grid races haven’t been used since.

Adelaide victory for Whincup

Of the 31 drivers on the Adelaide grid in 2006, only James Courtney, Mark Winterbottom, Will Davison, Lee Holdsworth and Fabian Coulthard will race full-time in 2022.

Of other teams in pit lane, Dick Johnson Racing and Brad Jones Racing remain, HRT is now Walkinshaw Andretti United and Ford Performance Racing became what is now Tickford Racing.

Neil Crompton was joined by Leigh Diffey in commentary, with current commentator Skaife still two years away from full-time retirement.

Albert Park was also on the 2006 calendar as a non-points round, but is now a fully-fledged round of the championship and returns in 2022.

A fresh-faced Whincup with eventual champion Rick Kelly

Of the drivers in the 2022 Supercars field, Whincup’s replacement Broc Feeney was just three years old when the 2006 season started in Adelaide.

Shane van Gisbergen was 16 years old, Chaz Mostert 13 years old, Cameron Waters 11 and Anton De Pasquale 10. Van Gisbergen wouldn’t debut in Supercars until mid-2007.

The 13-event 2022 Repco Supercars Championship will commence in Newcastle in March. Tickets for the event are on sale now.

The 13-round draft calendar was released during the Repco Bathurst 1000 weekend.