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Brad Jones Racing is an Australian motor racing team owned by brothers Kim and Brad Jones based in Albury. The team competes in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship and the Dunlop Super2 Series. Recently they have also returned to Australian Formula Ford where Brad and Kim began their careers. The team are both the only rurally based Supercars team and the only Supercars team in New South Wales. The team's current drivers are Nick Percat and Tim Slade. It also prepares a customer ZB Commodore for Tim Blanchard Racing.
History
Brad Jones Racing began as a Formula Ford team in which both Brad and Kim raced. Kim stopped racing relatively early, partially in recognition of Brad's ability as a driver with Kim becoming team manager. The team's peak in open-wheel racing came when, running an Elwyn chassis, Brad finished sixth in the 1981 TAA Formula Ford Driver to Europe Series. The pair faded as the 1980s developed, though Brad Jones would continue driving Bryan Thompson's twin-turbo Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC - Chevrolet in Sports Sedan and GT racing.
When Thompson came out of driving retirement in 1983, Brad Jones moved into driving a Mitsubishi Starion in Group E Series Production Touring Cars. Jones and the turbocharged Starion came to almost dominate Group E racing in Australia during 1983 and 1984 which led to the Jones brothers becoming involved in Kevin Bartlett's Mitsubishi touring car team, known occasionally as Mitsubishi Ralliart. Racing with Mitsubishi gave Brad several opportunities to race overseas, racing the Starion turbos in Australia, Japan and across Asia. During this time, Brad Jones again linked with Bryan Thompson to drive both the Mercedes Chev and a Chevrolet Monza to 2nd place (behind Thompson who also drove both cars) in the 1985 Australian GT Championship. Jones also drove the Monza in selected races throughout 1986, mostly at their "local" track, the Winton Motor Raceway.
After Kevin Bartlett severed ties with Mitsubishi in late 1985, the Jones brothers formed their own team BJ Motorsport to further the Starion touring car operation, qualifying the Starion 10th at the 1986 James Hardie 1000 after being fastest on the 1.9 kilometre long Conrod Straight during qualifying at 269 km/h (167 mph). By the end of 1986, the Starion, despite its straight-line speed, had faded as a truly competitive touring car and Brad Jones become a hired gun driver for other touring car teams. The Ralliart Australia team was revived in 1987, though Brad Jones was surprisingly overlooked for a seat at the 1987 James Hardie 1000. He was back with the team for the 1988 Tooheys 1000 which saw his best result to date in the Bathurst 1000 when he and Terry Sheil drove the ageing Starion to 10th place. He was then hired to race the full 1989 Australian Touring Car season in a turbocharged Ford Sierra RS500 for Peter Brock's Mobil 1 Racing. During the 1990s, Brad Jones was hired to drive in the late season endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst for the Holden Racing Team, Wayne Gardner Racing and Larkham Motor Sport.
Australian Stock Car Auto Racing
A way forward emerged with the creation of AUSCAR racing in Australia with the newly redeveloped Brad Jones Racing one of the first teams involved in the fledgling stock car series running Holden Commodores. BJR got their first start in AUSCAR in the 3rd annual Goodyear AUSCAR 200 at the Calder Park Thunderdome in 1988 in a Holden VL Commodore dubbed the "Green Meanie". Brad Jones qualified 5th and a strong run inside the top 10 saw him established as one of the front-runners.
Initially BJR raced only in AUSCAR, the second-tier series behind NASCAR where they quickly grew to become the dominant team in the series, winning five consecutive titles from 1990 to 1994. Occasional forays into Australia's NASCAR series blossomed into a full NASCAR campaign in the 1994/95 season and the team were rewarded with a sixth consecutive title with Jones this time driving a Chevrolet Lumina.
Super Touring
After running a Super Production Car Lotus Esprit to another title victory in 1994, BJR moved away from the fading Superspeedway scene into circuit racing and in 1995 entered the Australian Super Touring series as the official Audi team in the series, fielding a pair of Audi A4 Quattros for himself and Greg Murphy. The team then spent the next five years swapping titles with Paul Morris Motorsport, the official BMW team, with Jones winning the championship in 1996 and 1998. Murphy and later Cameron McConville (who replaced Murphy in 1997) won many races during the six-year period when Super Touring was at its peak.
During this time Brad Jones Racing twice finished on the podium in the two Bathurst 1000 races held for Super Touring cars. Jones himself finished second in 1997 with Frank Biela, and third in 1998 with McConville.
In 2000 while still heading Audi's Super Touring team in Australia, Jones was drafted into the Audi Sport North America sports car team for the Race of a Thousand Years, an American Le Mans Series race held on 31 December 2000 at the Adelaide Street Circuit. Jones was brought in as a third driver in the Allan McNish / Rinaldo Capello driven Audi R8 after Scotsman McNish had hurt his back 2 days before the race while stepping out of his Kilt after some publicity photos. Jones qualified the car (Capello won the pole), but McNish recovered to race and Jones remained a spectator for the 225 lap event which was won by McNish and Capello.
Team Members12
Evans
| | 14
Fullwood
| | 8
Heimgartner
| | 96
Jones
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