V8SC: Engineering shuffle in V8 Supercars

A couple of major changes are taking place in V8 Supercar racing’s engineering ranks as the endurance races loom and the championship climax less than four months away – with the Car of the Future’s arrival hot on its heels.

Tony Dowe, the British engineer and long-time ‘lieutenant’ of the late Tom Walkinshaw recruited from America by the Kelly Brothers, who are bringing Nissan into the series next year, has departed for Walkinshaw Racing as it attempts to revive Holden Racing Team for its Bathurst 1000 defence.

Replacing Dowe at Kelly Bros – but not until after the Sandown 500 – will be expatriate Australian Craig Spencer, who was Rick Kelly’s data engineer in his 2006 championship season with the HSV Dealer Team.

Spencer has been working with the Mercedes Grand Prix team for 15 months after experience with several other Formula One outfits, including seven years at the former Jordan team.

Dowe was introduced to the Walkinshaw Racing workforce today, although he attended yesterday’s test session at Winton with Nick Percat, the V8 development series driver who partnered Garth Tander to victory at Bathurst for HRT 10 months ago and will be his co-driver again this year.

Dowe has vast F1, sportscar and IndyCar racing experience and had been performance director at Kelly Racing for less than a year.

Walkinshaw Racing/HRT needed an engineering spark two-thirds of the way through what has been a horror season after recruiting another British ex-F1 engineer, Steve Hallam, as managing director.

HRT has not a won a race in this season’s championship and Tander and James Courtney languish seventh and 11th in the standings – and third WR driver Russell Ingall 17th – while rival Holden outfit Triple Eight Race Engineering and Ford Performance Racing have dominated, winning all 17 races between them.

Hallam said that Dowe’s appointment would give WR/HRT “greater flexibility in achieving our goals”.
Dowe’s title is engineering and development manager and he appears to slot in between Hallam and loyal HRT deputy Mike Henry.

At Kelly Racing Dowe’s title had been performance director, but replacement Spencer will be called general manager of technical and engineering operations.

Todd Kelly, who co-owns the team with brother Rick, said Spencer would “bring significant relevant technical racing knowledge and practical know-how to our team as we commence our build-up to the 2013 Car of the Future Nissan”.

“He will significantly lift the bar for our team.”

Kelly said the team was “grateful to Tony [Dowe] for all his efforts over the last 11 months”.

“Tony brought with him a wealth of international experience and through his vast contacts secured a formidable international line-up for this year’s Gold Coast 600 and Jacques Villeneuve [who has been deputising for Greg Murphy while he is sidelined after back surgery].

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