Holden
For 1993, Australian touring car racing moved to the V8 formula open only to Ford and Holden. Given his history with the brand and with Rothmans also leasing its fleet from Ford, it was expected that Fred Gibson would take this route, but with a better financial package on offer from Holden, Gibson Motorsport elected to race Holden VP Commodores. The team started with two cars assembled with many customer Holden Racing Team and Perkins Engineering components. After a lacklustre championship, the team were on the pace at Bathurst finishing 2nd.
In 1994, Skaife won the series.
In practice at Eastern Creek in January 1995, Skaife had a major accident that kept him from driving in the opening round of the series. This coupled with the need to find a new major sponsor and a mid-season workshop move saw the team off the pace throughout much of 1995, although Skaife would win the Eastern Creek round. At Bathurst, the car dominated the first 65 laps before failing with transmission failure.
From the end of 1995 tobacco sponsorship was outlawed. In a tight market, the team struggled to find a replacement, running just one plain white car in the opening rounds of 1996 for Skaife. Eventually some funding came the team's way from Sega and Holden's Network Q second hand division, but it was a long way short of the team's previous funding levels.
The situation didn't improve in 1997 with the team having to miss some rounds due to funding issues and Skaife leaving the team at the end of the championship to replace Peter Brock at the Holden Racing Team. A lifeline was thrown to the team by Garry Dumbrell, who contracted Gibson Motorsport to prepare his ex Gibson Motorsport VS Commodore for the 1997 endurance races with Darren Hossack and Steven Ellery finishing 6th at Bathurst.
In 1998, the team expanded to three cars, two Wynns cars for Darren Hossack and Darren Pate and a third car for the Holden Young Lions entry for Steven Ellery which was sub-contracted by the Holden Racing Team.
For 1999, the team built two new VT Commodores and recruited Steven Richards and Greg Murphy to drive the Wynns sponsored cars. A development program saw Murphy win a race at Symmons Plains before the pair won at Bathurst
Read more about this topic: Gibson Motor Sport, History, V8 Supercars
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