Youngster Shaw to make MARC debut

Jackson Shaw will make the big and unnatural jump from Hyundai Excel to MARC cars at next month’s Sydney season opener.

Having raced at the ACL Hyundai Excel Series at the recent AWC Race Tasmania event, Shaw will now steer a MARC car for the first time at Sydney Motorsport Park.

He joins the MARC Cars Australia Championship at the NSW season opener on April 12 and 13 where he will be steering one of Geoff Taunton’s cars.

The Race Tasmania event was where Shaw caught the eye of Taunton who was also competing in the Precision National Sports Sedan Series.

Shaw was in the thick of the intense battle for the Garry Rogers Trophy with the likes of 14-year-old karting champion Oliver Wickham, defending state Excel champion Jeremy Bennett and Tickford super 2 steerer Lochie Dalton.

All four races went down to the wire as the top four were covered by less than 1.1s.

Before the finale at Symmons Plains, Shaw won all three races at Baskerville Raceway.

But now Shaw will jump from the little Excel to a 600hp fire-breathing MARC car.

“Its certainly an amazing opportunity, and something I did not see coming,” he said.

“These cars are basically an Australian hand built GT car with a Chevrolet V8 and paddle shift Holinger transaxle, Motec, plenty of carbon fibre and aero and a true work of art and superfast!

“I’m so thankful to Geoff Taunton for this opportunity, he is not placing any pressure on me and has emphasised this is about the way I drive the car and conduct myself, it’s not about instant speed, Geoff has made it very clear that I am to let the car come to me, so his attitude is a big relief and removes a lot of the pressure.

“I’m also extremely thankful to Brett Thomas from TFH, we ran his 15-year-old son Diesel in a Hyundai under the Shaw motorsport banner at race Tasmania and Diesel did an amazing job (running as high as fifth place in only his fourth ever race meeting).”

Taunton believes the youngster is well equipped for the transition.

“Watching Jackson, what impressed me and drew me to him was the fact that over multiple races in the four car battle pack, he drove extremely cleanly in a sportsmanlike manner,” Taunton said.

“After chatting with him, what impressed me was his measured win mentality as opposed to a win or bin attitude.

“I see in Jackson plenty of ability, but importantly the mature attitude to race clean, fair and hard and that is exactly what we welcome into the MARC Cars Australia championship.

“I had a chance conversation with Brett Thomas owner of TFH (who runs two Trans Ams and also sponsors Erebus) Brett agreed to bring the TFH branding on board to jointly run Jackson in round one of the MARC Cars Australia Championship.”

Shaw will take part in a test day at Queensland Raceway on March 28 ahead of the opening MARC Car Australia Championship round on April 12-13 at SMP.

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