HOLDEN’S HEROES
MARK SKAIFE AND CRAIG LOWNDES REFLECT ON THEIR GLORY YEARS WITH HOLDEN
Mark Skaife and Craig Lowndes chew the fat on their finest drives in red and the way ahead for domestic racing
IT’S A GREY Friday morning at Melbourne’s Sandown International Raceway. Already, at 7.30am, the mowers are out trimming the lawns ahead of a coming horse race meeting. But we’re here to talk about a different kind of horsepower with Mark Skaife and Craig Lowndes, two true greats of Australia’s touring car and Supercars wars.
Sitting here in the famous main straight grandstand they do what motor racing people tend to do when they get together. They remember.
“One of my most vivid memories of this place is when
Fangio did the exhibition that time,” Skaife says. “I was standing in the pit area and he came out of turn one sideways fully gassed up. It was brilliant!”
Skaife cracks that crooked smile, then laughs in that distinctive giggling way of his. He has such a serious, intense persona that it comes as a shock when you hear it. Lowndes, well he’s smiling and laughing too. No surprise there. The most popular driver in Supercars is renowned for his cheer, even though it camouflages a deeply competitive instinct.
Skaife, 52, made his touring car debut here in 1987 in a 2.0-litre Nissan Gazelle and won his class. Lowndes, 45, debuted here in 1994 in a Holden Racing Team Commodore, which he shared with Brad Jones to finish fifth outright.
“I knew my way around here really well because I was doing a lot of driving instructor work and doing lots of laps in road cars,” Lowndes says. A few weeks later at Bathurst he passed John Bowe for the lead late in the race and a star was born.
We’re not only here for a happy steer down memory lane though. Our subject is the demise of Holden. As much as that impacts almost everyone in Australia in some way, its departure won’t be felt anywhere more keenly than in our most important motorsport category.
Ever since the first one was made in 1948, Holdens have been raced. Since 1969 the company has continuously been involved in touring car racing directly or indirectly. No other brand – not even greatest rival Ford – can boast that connection to the category, that much influence or that much return from the many millions it invested.
The immortal cars: Monaros, Toranas, Commodores. The legendary drivers: Brock, Skaife, Lowndes, Whincup, Perkins, Tander, Murphy, van Gisbergen, Richards, Harvey, Morris, Grice. The great bosses: Firth, Sheppard, Gibson, Walkinshaw, Crennan, Dane.
Holden’s success is written large in the record books; more Bathurst wins, more drivers’ championships, more of just about everything. But, from 2021, nothing.
“I was shocked,” Lowndes admits. “We knew the
Commodore was going to be phased out, but I didn’t think a brand like Holden would leave the shores of Australia.”
Adds Skaife: “The vividness and harshness of that decision... Bang! Holden gone. I don’t think anyone in Australia ever really thought that Holden, as an iconic ingrained brand, would ever not be part of our psyche.
“There’s this family, cultural heartland DNA about
Holden that embodies Australia. The power of a decision