You leave it to Larko.
Mark Larkham has a knack for distilling down and articulating the key elements of complex topics. His work on the Supercars TV broadcasts attests to that.
Instead of race strategies and technical jargon, today’s focus was Little, as Larkham gave a fitting and enlightening eulogy at the veteran engineer’s funeral service on the Gold Coast.
In it he dubbed Little the ‘Pit Lane GOAT’, putting forward the case that Little’s body of work makes him the greatest technical contributor in ATCC/Supercars history.
MORE: ‘Pit Lane GOAT’ Campbell Little farewelled
Surveying Little’s influence across various teams and drivers, the breadth of his engineering knowledge and prowess, and his work in recent years with the series itself, it’s hard to argue.
But Larko’s tribute was much more than just the headline quote, as he detailed the qualities that made Little the contributor he was and what the next generation can learn from his approach.
“It’s important, particularly for the young-uns in the room and watching, to think ‘what did Campbell leave behind that we can all learn from?’” Larkham said before detailing his qualities.
“Humility. I can’t remember ever in my career Campbell talking himself up, ever, unbelievable for a guy who achieved so much.
“He always said hello. You could not walk past Campbell, even with his cranky face on, and him not say hello, and he always addressed you by name. Just a great little attribute.
“Knowledge. He’s got a beautiful, wonderful brain, but he made it his own business to get the most from that, to learn, to educate himself. Some of the greats I do know are very similar in that regard.
“Listener. Campbell was a great listener. Probably of all the attributes that people could learn, that’s the best one.
“Brave. He fought his battle with cancer without complaining, said very little about it at all. Hence he was never a victim.
“He didn’t suffer wankers, which I think is a great attribute in our game.
“And he’s deeply competitive. I don’t think that’s something you teach, I think that’s something you have.
“I go back to the Jimmy Stone comment. Jimmy said to me a couple of years ago, he always loved to employ people who had competed.
“I think that’s a great thing for anyone in a race team and no wonder, when they set up his team, Campbell Little was their very first employee.
“But amongst all of that, the thing I love about Campbell, and we hear it from his family, just the normality of the guy.
“When your brain is so fertile, your skills are so high, to have a degree or normality about that is sometimes rare in our game… Campbell is an extraordinarily normal guy.”
Larkham delivered his words standing proudly in a Mitre 10 shirt, which he quipped may have been one that Little himself wore during their days together at Stone Brothers Racing in the late 1990s.
Perhaps fittingly, Larko was also one of Little’s final teammates after the latter spent the first half of this year in an off-camera ‘data engineer’ role, helping out the Supercars broadcast.
In between Little was involved in countless Supercars teams.
Little will be forever associated with his empire-building days as a key cog at powerhouses SBR, Triple Eight and Ford Performance Racing.
But there were stints at Dick Johnson Racing, Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport, Erebus Motorsport and Tekno Autosports too, before taking on the position as Supercars’ technical manager and helping to deliver Gen3.
“Teams could grab him and answer a lot of questions,” Larkham said of Little’s lengthy resume. “He was a team builder, I called him.”
Little was in demand because he had a history of success and a no-nonsense approach.
“Motorsport is a great bullshit filter because the stopwatch never, ever lies,” Larkham noted. “That’s what I love about Campbell, and for that reason he would make a terrible politician.”
The generic term ‘engineer’ did Little a disservice.
“I couldn’t give him a title,” Larkham said in front of a slide that listed various job titles and descriptions, all underneath that brilliantly blunt label – Pit Lane GOAT.
Engines. Electronics. Race engineer. Data specialist. Technical guru. Pit Lane Wizard. Mentor. Father. Husband. Legend. Great Bloke.
“There’s a whole lot of titles there, because that’s him.”
The last few of those gave important perspective, doubling down on the off-track insights into Little delivered earlier by his brother Tony and daughters Jess, Georgia and Ellyse.
“I feel very privileged that I’ve had Cam in my life,” Larkham concluded.
“What matters is the girls, (wife) Clare, all know by everything that’s been said, the people that are here, the people that are watching, from what we just saw, you know how much Cam was loved and respected in our industry.
“Godspeed Cam.”
VIDEO: Mark Larkham’s photo tribute to Campbell Little
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