Penrite Racing hits rare Supercars milestone in Darwin

Grove Racing, which operates under the Penrite Racing banner, will become the latest team to record 500 championship starts in Supercars.

Race 2 at this weekend's betr Darwin Triple Crown will be Grove Racing's 500th race start.

Grove Racing is considered a continuation of the team founded as Kelly Racing in 2009, that then ran as Nissan Motorsport (2013-19) and then Kelly Grove Racing in 2021.

The Melbourne-based squad ran Holdens between 2009 and 2012, before operating as the factory Nissan squad for the best part of a decade.

It then shifted to Ford in 2020 and downsized from four to two cars, with Andre Heimgartner delivering victory at The Bend in 2021 in the first year of Grove ownership.

The Grove family bought out the Kellys, with Grove Racing's Supercars operation born in 2022. In the years since, Matt Payne and David Reynolds carried the team to wins, after Rick Kelly scored victories between 2011 and 2018.

All told, the team has won 13 races; five for Payne, four for Rick Kelly, and singles for Heimgartner, James Moffat, Michael Caruso, David Reynolds.

Grove Racing joins Dick Johnson Racing (1072), Walkinshaw Andretti United (978), Brad Jones Racing (775), Tickford Racing (684) and Triple Eight (671) in the '500 club'.

It isn't the only team to go through a number of iterations and names; notably, WAU, operated under the Holden Racing Team banner between 1990 and 2016, while Tickford carried the monikers of Ford Performance Racing and Prodrive Racing Australia.

PremiAir Racing was born out of Team Sydney, yet commenced as a new organisation in 2022. Blanchard Racing Team also operated out of BJR before becoming a standalone team in 2021.

Track action in Darwin commences Friday.

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