AIM Motorsport withdraws from Super2

The pink Mustang of Zane Morse will not light up the Super2 grid for the remainder of 2024 with AIM Motorsport withdrawing from the category with immediate effect.

After entering 2024 with a lot of hope and promise, the first three rounds were full of unfortunate nightmare scenarios for the privateer squad from Bungendore.

It all started from the strange occurrence of parts allegedly being stolen on the opening day of the Bathurst 500 before the customer Mustang of James Masterton was parked.

Lead driver Morse then broke his wrist, forcing him to miss Perth before teammate Jett Johnson paused his career due to mental health.

Zane Morse all smiles in the hot seat.

The driver who replaced Johnson last time out at Townsville, Dean Fiore, suffered a horrific high-speed crash following a brake failure.

As a result of all these costly setbacks, AIM Motorsport co-owner Andre Morse has taken the difficult decision of leaving Super2 at the halfway mark of its fifth season in the second tier category.

“We love motorsport, but we have not loved this year. It has been a nightmare with nothing going right,” Morse told AUTO ACTION.

“It was just a culmination of so many things where it got to the point where a decision had to be made because we are just a family run team.

“It was either pull out of the year or pull out of the sport.

“We love Super2, but have pulled out because we cannot sustain it.

“It became too hard and the fun went out of it, so we want to get back to having fun.”

The Morse’s embrace after scoring a long awaited podium in Townsville last year. Image: Mark Horsburgh

AIM Motorsport will now put “everything” of its Super2 setup for sale, including Morse’s Gen2 Mustang that was driven to six Supercars wins by Cameron Waters, plus spares and the transporter.

Despite the decision, Andre Morse made it clear his plucky family-run outfit is not leaving motorsport for good.

“We would love to stay in the sport and are now looking at other avenues,” he said.

“We will put it all up for sale and then we will go again. We will have a look at what is viable for AIM Motorsport and what is best for Zane himself.”

This is not the position AIM Motorsport envisaged it would be at having started 2024 with high hopes.

The squad recruited big-name engineers Adam DeBorre and Erik Pender and planned to run three Mustangs, led by Morse’s ex-Waters weapon.

Andre Morse had hopes of even challenging for the championship, but feels the direction of travel for Super2 means it became too hard to compete, especially compared to when AIM arrived in 2020.

Zane Morse racing at Bathurst this year.

“Getting Adam and Erik on board, we had an awesome engineering and mechanical line up. The cars were prepared perfectly,” he reflected.

“So in a year when we were really looking at going for a championship, it went to nothing.

“Having Zane breaking his wrist and parts being stolen at Bathurst put us behind the eight ball.

“Super2 is just run at such a high tempo now and we were not there just to make up numbers – we want to win and get the top fives and top 10s, but it just got too expensive for us trying to compete against main game teams.

“The top 18 drivers were split by three and a half tenths at Townsville, which is crazy. Zane could have got onto the second row, but made a small mistake and was 14th.

“When we started we ran an old VF that was bent and still scored the occasional top 10 (but) the level has risen and that is a credit to all the teams.

“We have done the best we can with what we have, but can’t sustain it and don’t want to be running at the back with a car not prepared properly.”

Zane Morse leading the way at Bathurst last year. Image: Mark Horsburgh

Whilst the Morse family will miss Super2 when it resumes at Sandown, they will forever remember the special people and memories made from their time in the category.

“The amount of calls I have already received from people saying that we made them feel welcome by greeting them, or handing out free t-shirts to the kids or letting them sit in the car has been phenomenal,” he said.

“The biggest thing we will miss is all the people that came up and became part of our family team.

“After Zane was close to winning that race at Bathurst last year before running out of fuel, we had two young girls ask for an autograph. Zane had just lost the biggest race of his life, but kneeled down, signed their shirts and talked with them with a big smile. Now that is a driver.

“They have kept in touch and were some of the first to get in touch.

“There are more positives we take out of the sport than negatives, but there are exciting things to come.”

Main Image: Peter Norton EPIC Sports Photography

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