The real Roland Dane revealed

Supercars team boss Roland Dane likes to cook. Who knew?

He also has a home in Brisbane that looks like a spread from Vogue Living, is a champion yachtsman, collects original artwork and had a father who was one of the earliest members of Britain’s elite SAS fighting unit and also isolated the key to the hepatitis B virus.

He has owned hotels and restaurants, ran a car company when he was in his early 20s, once sold more than 90 brand-new Rolls-Royces and Bentleys in a single year, and for a time was a wannabe MotoGP racer in Britain.

Yet most people only see Dane in a picture that is framed entirely by the pit bunker of the Red Bull Holden Racing Team.

It’s been a happy scene for the past 15 years, as Dane’s outfit first conquered and then dominated the Australian Touring Car Championship through the Supercars era which has produced the closest and most competitive racing in the history of tin-top motorsport.

The scoreboard reflects a decade-and-a-half of domination by Dane and his drivers, Craig Lowndes, Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen.

“It’s 181 wins at the moment. Eight teams’ championships. Eight drivers’ championships. Six Bathurst wins. 355 podiums,” Dane says simply, not bragging or gloating.

He’s talking on the morning after hosting an exclusive 15th anniversary dinner for the most loyal of his lieutenants, the five crew members and their partners who have been with him at Triple Eight Race Engineering since Dane set up shop in Australia.

“To be honest, I’m feeling a bit dusty today,” he smiles as he opens the door to his race base in the Brisbane suburb of Banyo.

“It was a good night. Part of the celebration included 15-year-old scotch and 15-year-old brandy. I’ll be alright soon.”

It doesn’t take him long to get firing, as he talks about life in — and beyond — Supercars.

“It’s been a good 15 years. It was a big adventure for someone who was 45 years old,” he begins.

Dane was already a motorsport champion in the British Touring Car Championship when he packed his bags for Australia.

He was also a motor industry veteran who began as a gopher at Panther Westwinds before rising to take control of the company and then establish his own sales organisation which turns over millions each year and deals in everything from Land Rover Defenders to Ferrari exotica.

He has dozens of insider stories, from armour-plating cars for the great and the not-so-good to a project to build a giant hovercraft for a super-rich American client.

Then there is the one about the ‘defeat device’, similar to the one that got Volkswagen into the ‘Dieselgate’ drama, which was used for new Japanese imports to the UK in the 1990s…

“Maybe there is a book. One day. But would anyone want to read it?” Dane asks.

He is quite wealthy by any measure, although he is reluctant to detail anything beyond the $4.5 million he has in his house and a Supercars operation that runs on an annual turnover of more than $15 million.

“My principal businesses have done well enough over the years to give me a certain freedom, financially,” he admits.

“I enjoy doing the deals and I enjoy business, but I’m not motivated by making lots of money. Never have been.”

For now, he is happier to talk about the decision to buy the John Briggs team in 2003 to lay the foundation for his own Supercars operation.

This included importing technical guru Ludo Lacroix — “apart from once forgetting to renew his visa he adapted well” — plus luring Craig Lowndes to the team, which involved a controversial switch from Ford to Holden, and then the deal to replace the Walkinshaw organisation as Holden’s official factory team.

But it’s better to backtrack to Britain to find out more.

“Yeah, there have been bits and pieces we’ve done over the years to keep the kids in shoes,” Dane begins.

“My principal business is a car sales business that I started in 1986, and these days sells exotica, mostly right-hand drive, around the Pacific seaboard as well as the UK and Ireland.

“In 1993 we sold 93 new Rolls-Royces and Bentleys around Asia when several years earlier they didn’t like me selling their cars on the parallel market. It was quite ironic to get a Christmas card from the CEO that year.

“There was period when we had, through the UK business, a major share of a company in Malaysia that represented, amongst other things, Aprilia motorcycles there. But we sold out of that business eight years ago now.

“At one time or another we’ve had other investments. In the 1990s we had hotels, which was started by one of my oldest and closest friends from school. That was good fun and we're still good friends as he’s moved on to become one of the most successful hoteliers in the UK.”

After his early efforts in motorcycle racing, Dane switched to cars and — with retired F1 racer Derek Warwick as one of his partners — jumped into the BTCC with an outfit that would become the official Vauxhall (the British cousin of Holden) team.

“When we started Triple Eight in England in the mid-1990s we needed a name to do the presentation to Honda, because that was the first target though Derek’s connections as a dealer.

“We needed a name which wasn’t same-same, something racing, and that people would remember. Given all the business I’d done in Asia, in Hong Kong and Singapore, I knew eight is lucky and triple eight is three times as lucky.”

He and Warwick are still close, and Dane gets unique — and completely confidential — insights from a mate who is now also an FIA F1 steward.

“We’re very close. We were at the Isle of Man TT together in June for a few days. We talk most weeks on the phone and review pretty much every grand prix, every Supercar race and every MotoGP race.

“Of course, we can say exactly what we think to each other about the sport and the people in it and it just says with us.”

Dane eventually got bored with the BTCC and that was one reason for the move Down Under, although he had also divorced four years earlier.

It’s worked out well and he — along with his younger daughter Jess — is now an Australian citizen. But, typically for Dane, he also still holds British and Irish passports.

“I was unsure if I would like Australia enough to end up living here. But it’s been a good 15 years.”

He is ideally placed for a range of insights on motorsport, from his superstar driver Jamie Whincup to his picks if he ran an F1 team.

“Jamie doesn’t go out of his way to be a public person. He is certainly not bland if you know him. He can be great fun.

“F1? I think today, right now, Lewis Hamilton is absolutely the best brand prix driver in the world. So you’d want to have him. And then, thinking of the future, you’d have Daniel Ricciardo, just so life would be a bit more fun.

Daniel is a rare mixture of a race winner and a great character. If you had him you could balance the yin and yang with Lewis. That would be a great team to have.”

Changing gears, Dane has dropped more than 10 kilos over the past six month — “Paul Morris says its one for every year in Australia” — and reveals a surprising interest in cooking.

“Have you tried cauliflower rice? It’s wonderful and doesn’t have the carbs of regular rice,” he says.

“These days I don’t eat meat very often, but when I do and entertain I love cooking the best Australian steak. It’s so good.

“I love making risotto. It’s my favourite dish to cook. It’s involved and it takes time to do it right.

“I’ll mess around, even if I’m just making myself an omelette. I never buy pre-packed food or order pizza. I always do something.”

Moving back to motorsport, why is Dane so good and Triple Eight so successful?

“That’s for other people to judge, not me. Plus, I don’t want to give away trade secrets. It’s my IP,” he says.

What about a succession plan? Is there a chance that Jess could take over at the top of Triple Eight?

“If she wants to be a part of it, absolutely. But not only her. And only if she can prove that she is worthy of it. And, anyway, that would be some way down the line.”

Dane and his team has turned the all-new ZB Commodore racer into a Supercars winner this year, and is building championship momentum, but even he knows that it cannot last forever.

“How much is enough? The sport is always cyclical. Nothing lasts forever but we’ll work hard and enjoy it and try to set up the next generation to look after it.

“For sure, we have lifted the bar. But other people have responded — just not as consistently.”

Dane is happy with where he is, what he has and what he has achieved, but there is far more to a man who comes from a famous family of over-achievers who include doctors and a successful art dealer.

“I never went to university. I’m the only one in the family that doesn’t have at least two degrees,” he admits.

“But I went to Panther and I’ve had a very good education. I learned to be street-smart and how to do a deal.”