Jane completed his first session without drama, finishing 10th in the Pro-Am class and 49th overall out of the 63 deep field. 

Carrera Cup is a support event for the 24 Hours of Le Mans – the classic French endurance race that is the world’s oldest active endurance racing event and is celebrating its centenary this year.

The weekend marks the return of the Bob Jane T-Marts brand to Le Mans, 39 years since Bob Jane, Peter Brock and Larry Perkins combined for an all-Aussie assault on the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Racing greats Perkins and Brock took on the 24 Hour race in a Bob Jane T-Marts backed John Fitzpatrick Racing Porsche 956.

On the return of Bob Jane T-Marts to La Sarthe, Perkins reflected on the event 40 years ago, providing some wise words for Jane as he prepares to take on the Porsche Carrera Cup support event to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Back in 1984, it proved a troublesome campaign for the Australian contingent as suspension troubles plagued the team throughout its warm up event at Silverstone and the main event a month later at Le Mans, but according to Perkins, it was an unforgettable experience.

Perkins was at the wheel when disaster struck while lapping slower competitors. He crashed during the night, a mistake he is still disappointed about to this day.

Four years later, Perkins was recruited by Tom Walkinshaw to race one of his team’s famous Silk Cut Jaguar entries to finish fourth despite it being another troublesome race.

For Jane, his weekend continues with more practice before qualifying on Friday and the 50-minute race prior to the main 24 Hour event on Saturday morning (France time)

QUOTES

Larry Perkins

“All I can say is I wish Rodney well and I hope he enjoys himself,” said Perkins.

“At circuits like Le Mans, you’ve got to finish. You can’t just attack a circuit like that at ten-tenths all the time, but I wish him well.

“He’ll enjoy it for sure. It’s a fantastic circuit.

“I remember our trip in 1984. I was working for Peter Brock and for some reason we were talking about Le Mans. I don’t exactly know why, which ended in him asking ‘why don’t we go there?’

“It quickly moved onto me saying ‘I’ve got a good mate of mine who knows the system, we can rent a Porsche in England’ and I had a network of people.

“Brocky and Greg Siddle thought Bob Jane might be interested in this, so he was involved as was Alan Hamilton (long-time Porsche Australia distributor). Alan’s dad was a friend of mine for many, many years. I knew Alan well and he said he’d have no problem talking to Porsche about getting some engines for us. The Dunlop people came onboard of which was a big customer.

“It very quickly got enough legs to make it all happen and we went to Le Mans.

“The biggest issue I had was I was running Peter Brock’s race team and it was about three or four months before Bathurst. As we know, Bathurst is a massive project in itself, so this added even more pressure. I took two very good mechanics of mine with me to England to prepare the car – Jeff Grech and Andrew Bartley.

“It all went really, really well, but the worst thing was the car wasn’t initially prepared as well as it should have been from the Fitzpatrick factory. We eventually got it going pretty good, but we had issues. Ultimately a suspension failure, which shouldn’t have happened, put us a long way behind in the race.

“As a result, I was driving at the time when we were many laps behind and driving at the limit not paying enough attention in a passing manoeuvre at a very high speed section. I misread the inside line, which was slippery from debris and it put me off the road into the catch fence.

“It was one of my worst moments in motor racing. I like to think I wouldn’t normally make those mistakes, but I did indeed and it was all over.”