John Bowe Back in V8's with WSR

Former V8 Supercar Champion, John Bowe is set to make a welcome return to the V8 Supercar fraternity this season following his 2007 retirement, as he joins the Wilson Security Racing (WSR) team.

However, Bowe will not be climbing behind the wheel of the Wilson Security Falcon on race day.
Instead, the two-time Bathurst winner eagerly takes on a newly-created Communication and Development role within the team.

Re-uniting with his former engineers Phil Curtis and Leigh Geyer, Bowe's vast race experience will be a huge asset to the young and rapidly expanding Wilson Security Racing outfit in its quest to rise up through the V8 Supercar ranks.

Bowe's long-standing relationship with the team's engineers will greatly assist the communication process between driver and engineer, particularly as the racing legend works closely mentoring young up-and-comer Michael Patrizi.

A Wilson Security ambassador, Bowe believes this latest expansion of his role with WSR is an obvious and natural evolution given the company's commercial aims of communication and developing people.

The veteran racer will be on hand when both Wilson Security Racing and Patrizi debut at the Clipsal 500 for the 2009 V8 Supercar season opener in Adelaide (SA) on 19-22 March.

John Bowe:

"I'm absolutely delighted by this opportunity to extend my work with Wilson Security and get back into V8 Supercars again.

"This is an opportunity for me to share some of my experience; there's just so much to learn in V8 Supercars and I hope I can help short circuit that process for these talented young drivers.

I was a young bloke myself at one point and I remember the people that helped me and it was invaluable.

In the past, I've worked with young developing drivers like Steven Johnson and Cameron McConville and it's something that I really enjoyed doing. It's very rewarding to watch them do well.

V8 Supercars is much more than just driving the car; it's about reading the car and then being able to communicate that with your engineers, it's about building relationships to help get the most out of the car and yourself and, of course, managing all the other distractions that are all part of modern V8 racing to stay focussed on your job on the racetrack.

I've got a long, long history with both WSR's engineers, Phil Curtis and Leigh Geyer that harks back to the DJR days, and then Phil built my CAT Racing car and we worked together at Brad Jones Racing, too. Meanwhile, Leigh and I joined forces again at PCR in 2007 for my V8 retirement season.

"We've done a lot of racing together so we already understand each other very well, which is obviously going to help the communication process between driver and engineer.

That's a crucial part of racing success in such a heavily engineered category as V8's and I'll be working particularly hard with Michael Patrizi to develop a strong rapport with his engineer, Phil.

Fabian Coulthard acquitted himself extremely well in the 2008 season and, with a great race package and another season of experience under his belt, I think we'll see him among the front runners even more this year.

I think Michael is a very talented young driver who was thrown in the deep end last season. I'm really looking forward to working with him and offering as much direction and advice as I can... V8 Supercars has not seen the best of Michael yet, and I reckon he will surprise a lot of people this year.

I'm very excited to be working with these young guys and I really look forward to seeing the season unfold for WSR.For further information, please contact:
Marscelle Tully
Live PR & Media
marscelle@live.com.au