GRM announces Supercars exit

Garry Rogers Motorsport will pull out of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship at the end of the current season.

Veteran owner Rogers has confirmed the news ahead of today’s Racing Entitlements Contract deadline for 2020 

The team had flagged the possibility of dropping out of the series if it lost the backing of Boost Mobile, which linked with the team at the start of the season.

“We won’t be renewing our franchises,” said Rogers in a video address published by the team..

“It’s probably been thought about, people have wondered what we’re doing, what we weren’t doing … I just want everyone to know where we’re going.

“I went to Supercars and requested an extension of a week or two to perhaps put a business plan together where we would stay in the Supercar business but they rejected that.

“The Supercar business to me, I do it because I love doing it. It’s not a big financial gainer of any kind.

“We make some money some years, we lose some money some years but we enjoy it and I enjoy it because of the people I do it with.

“Supercars have tried, without success, to curtail the costs.

“They have not done a good job of that and certainly we as a team cannot afford to keep doing it the way the rules are currently structured so we just had to decide what we were going to do.”

GRM will continue to operate as a race team in other categories.

GRM joined the championship in 1996, initially as a single-car Holden squad, before moving to a two-car structure two years later.

Highlights included winning the Bathurst 1000 with Garth Tander and Jason Bargwanna in 2000 and running Volvo’s Supercars program from 2014-16, spearheaded by Scott McLaughlin.

GRM switched back to Holdens in 2017 and this year fields Commodores for Rogers’ long-time protégé James Golding and Kiwi Richie Stanaway, who joined as part of the Boost deal.

Rogers gave many Supercars stars their first shot in the main game, including McLaughlin, Garth Tander, Jamie Whincup and Steven Richards.

More to follow.