Bob Jane - Racing Career

Racing Career

In 1961, Jane and co-driver Harry Firth won the Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island, Victoria, driving a Mercedes-Benz 220SE. Jane and Firth won the race again the following year, the last before the event moved to Mount Panorama at Bathurst, New South Wales, retaining the Armstrong 500 name. Jane, driving for the Ford works team, won a further two Armstrong 500s at the new venue, the first with Firth in 1963 and the second in 1964 with George Reynolds as co-driver. Despite the change of venue, Jane is officially credited with winning Australia's most famous endurance race four times in a row, something no other driver has ever done.

Jane won the Australian Touring Car Championship (now known as the V8 Supercar Championship Series) in 1962, 1963, 1971 and 1972. His 1971 ATCC win was in a Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 with a 427 cubic inch engine. Jane was forced by a rule change to replace the 427 engine with a 350 cubic inch engine for the 1972 championship but the Camaro still managed to beat the opposition, which included Allan Moffat's famous Boss 302 Mustang. Of the 38 races he started in the ATCC, he finished on the podium 21 times. He also won the 1963 Australian GT Championship at the wheel of a Jaguar E-type and the Marlboro Sports Sedan Series, in both 1974 and 1975, at his own Calder Park Raceway.

He retired from racing in 1986.

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