in which Bob Thorn contested the
1999 Shell Championship Series for Briggs Motor Sport. The car is pictured in 2018 in its 1999 colours. Briggs Motor Sport made its debut in the
1997 in a
Ford EF Falcon for team owner John Briggs, in 1998 it campaigned an EL Falcon, a year later it expanded to a two car team with John Briggs driving an AU Falcon and executive of the team's leading sponsor, Supercheap Auto, Bob Thorn in the older EL Falcon from the year before. In September 1999, Briggs bolstered his operation after purchasing the
Perth based
PAE Motorsport team, absorbing the
Caterpillar backed Ford of
John Bowe into the team. The team ran a single car for the next few seasons, the team sacking Bowe after Bathurst in 2001, replacing him with emerging New Zealand driver
Simon Wills. In 2002 the team expanded to three cars with Betta Electrical Fords for veteran
Tony Longhurst and Brazilian open wheel driver
Max Wilson. Both drivers were replaced in 2003 with
Paul Radisich and
Dean Canto for the 2003 season but by August, Briggs had sold the V8 Supercar operation to British outfit
Triple Eight Race Engineering, to establish an
Australian arm of the race team led by
Roland Dane,
Derek Warwick and Ian Harrison. Briggs stepped back from professional racing at this point and spent several years away from the sport before investing in some historic racing cars, highlighted by the return of the 1985
Veskanda-
Chevrolet sports car to race tracks in 2007. Since then Briggs has expanded his operation into the Australian GT Championship, driving and importing
Moslers. After a diagnosis of prostate cancer, Briggs recently announced his retirement from competitive motorsports. He then sold the VesKanda to
Perth based racer
Paul Stubber, who would take the car to drive in the Historic
Group C sports car races held in Europe during 2012. ==References==