THUNDER STRUCK
The story is as old as the hills – someone is confronted with a deadly illness and vows to live life to the full, if spared. This was the scenario Jeff Morton found himself in, resulting in his determination to hit Australia’s tracks and road rallies in a 991 GT2 RS...
Back in 2010, then thirtyyear-old motorsport fanatic, Jeff Morton, was diagnosed with a brain tumour. So his doctors said, should he survive the required traumatic programme of treatment — surgery, radiation and chemotherapy — he would likely never drive again. This was devastating news for a man whose life revolved around the automotive industry. Indeed, while completing his degree at the University of Technology Sydney, Jeff investigated the prospect of importing second-hand cars from Japan and selling them for profit. Following in his father’s footsteps as a computer programmer didn’t appeal, whereas an uncle with a successful engineering business served as inspiration for what was possible as founder of an independent company. In 2001, at twenty-one years of age, Jeff established a business leasing cars to selected clients. Main dealers were, of course, offering lease options to their customers, but Jeff saw an opening in small businesses wanting to offer their employees the opportunity of leasing cars as part of their salary package, an arrangement attracting tax benefits. This enterprise was a stepping stone for Autopia, a company Jeff founded in 2004 to fill another gap in the Australian motor vehicle supply market. Essentially, Autopia took on the role of fleet manager for companies not large enough to have capacity to take care of the work themselves. It doesn’t take initiative alone to identify opportunities like this, though — a great deal of determination, time and graft is required. Jeff has all three in spades, which is the primary reason the company prospered.
Revenues earned by Autopia provided the funds for Jeff to open an account for himself on Australia’s race tracks and in the country’s road rallies. Previously, without the cash to compete professionally, his participation was limited to practice days, but thanks to Autopia’s success, he was able to enter a multi-disciplined series of events, including the 2008 New South Wales Dutton Rally. Although the BMW 135i he was competing in wasn’t on the same level as the super-aggressive machines of his rivals, he was able to score top ten finishes time and again. Not bad for a Bimmer in standard showroom specification and in a field of up to a hundred cars. In 2010, Jeff moved up another rung, importing a second-hand Lotus Elise from the UK. Working with Sydney-based marque specialist, Simply Sports Cars, the new arrival was prepared for the cut and thrust of competition. Before long, however, Jeff’s doctor delivered the aforementioned grave news. The Lotus was immediately mothballed. It looked very much as though Jeff would be unable to discover whether he could be as successful in motorsport as he was in business. Aussie grit comes into play. Jeff put himself in the hands of medical specialists and, following a challenging operation, immersed himself in aftertreatment courses of radiation and chemotherapy. As you can imagine, it was a taxing time for the Morton family, but Jeff quickly became an inspiration for anyone facing the same lifethreatening situation — he became an ambassador for the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation, a charity dedicated to increasing survival rates and improving the quality of life for those impacted by an illness killing more children in Australia than any other cancer.
A year passed. The Lotus remained motionless in Jeff’s garage — he’d been stripped of his driving licence, but having come through the operation and subsequent intensive programme of treatment, and with his recovery looking surprisingly good, he applied for and received permission to return to the road in May 2011. He was itching to pick up where he left off with the Elise, but doing so required a competition license, which is an altogether different challenge to reobtaining a driving license for the road.
PERMISSION TO LAND
“I had to jump through a lot of hoops,” he tells me. It’s difficult enough getting a racing license in Australia without the challenge of a major illness providing an extra level of scrutiny from issuing authorities — many years ago, in Southern Australia, I aspired to move up from club racing with my 356 Speedster. It was far from a case of simply grabbing an appropriate license ‘off the shelf’. Jeff, however, found himself akin to a pilot trying to regain his licence after being told he’d never fly an aircraft again. Not something I had to contend with. The Confederation of Australian Motorsport (CAMS, now named Motorsport Australia) was the ruling body. This is where the analogy of the pilot’s licence comes in. You see, I’m not sure how long it takes to get your wings, so to speak, but pursuing a CAMS race
I’M NOT SURE HOW LONG IT TAKES TO GET YOUR WINGS, SO TO SPEAK, BUT PURSUING A CAMS LICENCE CONSUMED THE NEXT FIVE YEARS OF JEFF’S LIFE
licence consumed the next five years of Jeff’s life. CAMS representatives were playing safe, obviously, but he was champing at the bit. “I was doing all the right things,” he relays. “I was getting the required medicals and filling in all the forms I was being asked to complete. I even registered and participated in various low-profile events, where only a road licence was required. It was a way of demonstrating I was ready.” Invariably, he beat all opposition thrown his way. Finally, in late September 2016, his patience was rewarded with a CAMS competition license, meaning he could compete in events attracting the best drivers and cars in Australasia. Naturally, he was delighted to have the necessary paperwork finally in his possession, but the timing of its arrival gave very little wiggle room to prepare for the for the Targa High Country Rally, the next available event he wanted to contest. A well-supported competition centred around Victoria’s best-known ski resort (its focal point being Mount Buller, a mountain in the Victorian Alps of the Great Dividing Range) and some 2,200 metres above sea level, the event welcomed Jeff and his friend, Jarred Kershaw, in the Time Speed Distance (Regularity) class, which doesn’t necessarily reward the fastest car or driver, but a good car-driver-navigator combination certainly helps meet the strict criteria of crossing the finish line on or as close to the predetermined target time.
Thanks to the work at Simply Sports Cars, the Elise — powered by a supercharged 1.8-litre Toyota engine delivering near 330bhp — benefited from upgraded brakes and suspension. With so little time between Jeff getting his competition licence and the start of the event, he and Jarred finishing in third place was an extraordinary achievement. More challenges beckoned.
Challenge Bathurst is an annual event in which drivers are challenged to set the best lap times at Mount Panorama Circuit in New South Wales. Jeff entered 2016’s contest, which took place in late November, shortly after the Victoria outing. He clocked a scintillating two-minute and twentythree second lap, which is nothing short of fantastic for someone who hadn’t previously driven this particular track. To put this achievement into perspective, the venue’s lap record stands at a shade under two minutes, achieved by
professional driver, Christopher Miles, driving an Audi R8 MLS GT3 in the heat of battle.
MAKING TRACKS
A circuit lap attack was all well and good, but rallies really set Jeff’s pulse racing. “Targa High Country gave me a real taste for road rallies,” he recalls. “In Australia, the best-known of these events is the Targa Tasmania. Held each April, the event is the world’s largest tarmac rally and is located 240 kilometres south of the Australian mainland — Tasmania is separated from it by the Bass Strait. I was determined to see how well I could perform in the event. The first I was able to enter was 2017’s outing. In preparation, I swapped the Elise for an Exige, a Lotus far better suited to the event’s many different stages and challenges.” He also needed a navigator who knew the island, its towns, villages, twisty forest roads and mountain passes. Having navigated the previous fifteen Targa Tasmania events, Dennis Neagle was just the man. As if to prove the point, he and Jeff went on to win their class (GT Sports Trophy) a huge ten minutes ahead of the second-placed car. In years gone by, Targa Tasmania featured Rookie Rallye, offering entrants the opportunity to compete in the hope of winning free entry to the main event. Rookie Rallye returned in 2018, affording entrants the possibility a shot at the fullfat 2019 Targa Tasmania. As a veteran of the main competition, Dennis was ineligible, which is why Jeff called upon the services of Steve Fisher, a navigator more than up to the task. Indeed, the pair duly crossed the line in first place.
The Targa Great Barrier Reef, held north in the Sunshine State of Queensland, was a new event staged in September 2018. Like Targa Tasmania, it is an open competition, attracting some of the best drivers and cars in Australia. “I thought I’d give it a go,” Jeff shrugs. In this instance, ‘giving it a go’ equates to finishing third overall in a packed entry list of powerful cars and experienced drivers. It was then time to head back down south to Victoria’s Alpine region for the year’s Targa High Country, which saw Jeff bag another highly creditable thirdplace finish. Momentum was building Proving the point, in 2019, he set sail across the Tasman Sea to take up his free entry in the year’s Targa Tasmania. He partnered with experienced navigator, Daymon Nicoli. The dynamic duo finished fourth overall in an entry list of almost two hundred competitors. It was a more than respectable result, but one Jeff felt needed to be improved on. This, as you can probably guess, meant ditching the Lotus and buying a new car. And what a car he picked! With proceeds from the sale of Autopia, he invested in a 991 GT2 RS in 2020. “Rally rivals driving Porsches were phenomenally competitive,” he reasons.
“Their cars offered superior power and rock-solid reliability, but also an easy supply of parts if something went wrong, although this was a rare occurrence. Pleasingly, I could specify the GT2 RS with a factory roll cage, which can be unbolted, allowing the car to be sold and used as an everyday, road-going 911, should the need present itself. This really appealed to me.”
With a Porsche acquired, it was time to seek sponsorship. Goodyear’s Australian outpost was first to step in with support. The die was set: Goodyear tyres, a race-bred 911 and Jeff behind the wheel. This stellar combination immediately paid off.
The car made its maiden competitive appearance in the Mount Baw Baw Sprint, which serves as the first
UNDAUNTED AND DESPERATE TO KEEP MOMENTUM GOING, HE ENTERED THE PRECIOUS FEW TRACK EVENTS PERMITTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
round of the Australian Tarmac Rally Championship. With regular navigator, Daymon, at his side, Jeff beat all other competitors, despite this being his first time at the event. Winding forest roads are interspersed with fast, short, straight sprints and a twenty-mile climb to Baw Baw’s summit, a challenge Jeff relished. The event is divided into more than a dozen stages and spread across two days. It’s important to note, the GT2 RS didn’t finish first on every stage, but it completed the overall event by a staggering nine minutes and forty-nine seconds ahead of the runner-up. A month later, car and driver took top honours at the Lake Mountain Sprint in Victoria. Just when Jeff felt the problems he’d experienced during the previous five or so years were behind him, the pandemic arrived. He had a new car and a new partner in Goodyear, but just as he was demonstrating what a powerful combination they could be, COVID-19 dictated lockdowns the world over. Motorsport was cancelled. Undaunted and desperate to keep momentum going, he entered the precious few track events permitted by the Australian government. Although he was successful (he won the Supercar Class in the Australian Time Attack weekend at Wakefield Park in his home state of New South Wales), he wasn’t happy with his overall performance. “Naturally, the car was configured for rally events, with longer travel in the suspension and the dampers adjusted for a soft ride. This isn’t ideal for the cut and thrust of repetitious lapping on the same ground and around same corners time after time. Also, in truth, I wasn’t as confident at circuit events, where you have to maximise the limits in every corner and in each braking
zone if you want to achieve the best lap time.” Despite his misgivings, on 28th November 2020, he returned to Challenge Bathurst.
He set his sights set on the lap record for production sports cars. As mentioned earlier, he’d already chalked up a scintillating lap time in his modified Lotus Elise, but felt that with the GT2 RS, the then production sports car lap record of two minutes and sixteen-and-a-half seconds was beatable. He refined his circuit driving at Sydney’s Motorsport Park and, consequently, sensed the lap record at Mount Panorama might not be a goal too far.
RUBBER SOUL
“I arrived at Bathurst with the car rolling on used Goodyear Eagle F1 Supersport RS tyres,” he remembers. “I managed a best of two minutes and eighteenpoint-six seconds in the last session of the day at peak temperature. The plan was to throw on a fresh set of tyres in the cool of the next morning and have another crack at the record. We duly installed new rubber and, although I was somewhat impeded by another car in the first practice session, I got my lap time down to two minutes and fifteen-point-eight seconds, a full seven tenths quicker than the previous record for any production sports car.” In the next session, with track temperatures rising, he had a clear run and clocked two minutes and fourteen-point-two seconds, more than two seconds faster than the production sports car lap record then held by five-time DTM champion and AMG brand ambassador, Bernd Schneider, who registered his time in a 2017 Mercedes-amg GT R. Schneider’s was a record standing for several years before Jeff’s accomplishment. “All over the world and at famous circuits, professional drivers have set lap records time and again,” he reflects. “And then I turn up, an amateur driver with very limited circuit experience, and set a lap record at a racetrack recognised across the globe. I still can’t quite believe it!”
When lockdown restrictions lifted, Jeff entered Targa Tasmania once again.
This was the 2021 event. As before, he was behind the wheel of the GT2 RS and had Daymon assisting as navigator. Tragically, the event was marred by multiple fatalities, including the death of Dennis, who passed away alongside driver, Leigh Mundy, when the pair’s 991 GT3 RS veered off the road and collided with a tree near Cygnet, south of Hobart, on the final day of the competition. Veteran driver, Shane Navin, was killed a day earlier, when he lost control of his 1979 Mazda RX-7 while cornering at Double Barrel Creek. Tasmania is a beautiful island, but being the southern-most state of Australia makes it prone to very unaustralian weather. So it was during the last days of April 2021. News of Dennis’ death reached Jeff, who fully appreciated the challenges participants faced — his GT2 RS, a rear-wheel drive sports car with 690bhp pumping out of its 3.8-litre flat-six, was a handful in inclement weather. Powerful four-wheeldrive cars ruled the roost. That said, despite ‘playing it safe’, Jeff and Daymon finished third-in-class and fourth overall. After the troubled event, Jeff sought the expertise of Sydney-based Porsche sales, servicing and motorsport specialist, Autohaus Hamilton, which quickly became an integral part of his continued improvement behind the wheel. Entry into the highly competitive Adelaide Rally at the end of 2021 brought second-place overall, a result he built on in 2022, when he returned to the
Targa High Country Rally. This time, of course, he was driving his GT2 RS, which he’d dubbed Red Thunder. With Daymon as navigator, the pair were first to the top of the iconic Mount Buller stage
HIS GT2 RS, A REAR-WHEEL DRIVE SPORTS CAR WITH 690BHP PUMPING OUT OF ITS 3.8-LITRE FLAT-SIX, WAS A HANDFUL IN INCLEMENT WEATHER
and went on to dominate the three-day event, leading from start to finish and winning by a significant two minutes and twenty-four seconds. “It was our first outright Targa victory,” Jeff grins. “Needless to say, we were pretty pleased with ourselves.”
It was time to return to the epic six days of Targa Tasmania. Low, dense cloud and precipitation made the course’s roads damp and slippery. “It was difficult to see any of the corners ahead, let alone what was around them,” Jeff sighs. Predictably, a string of accidents yielded a fatality — Lotus Exige driver, Tony Seymour, was killed when his car (also carrying his wife as navigator) hit a steep embankment and crashed. The event was immediately cut short. In a move seen by organisers as providing a safer time of year to compete, the 2023 Targa Tasmania was postponed from its traditional staging in April to late October. Unfortunately, as the year progressed, the decision was made to cancel the event. In fact, Motorsport Australia suspended permits for all of the country’s road-based rallies, giving it time to review recommendations for safety, including speed limits. Consequently, Targa Tasmania won’t be returning until 2025. Entries are, however, already open and, as you can probably guess, fourteen years on from his life-threatening medical diagnosis, Jeff is itching to get going. We’ll be sure to report on his progress — just as when he was battling brain cancer, he’ll be out front, fighting with everything he’s got. ●