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His interest in the sport began at an early age for the Brisbane native. He did the yearly family trip to the Gold Coast as a kid and with his dad would go to the Indy Grand Prix on the Saturday.
“He was always adamant that the Saturday was the best day to go because we got to see the greatest number of categories and qualifying and all that kind of thing. That’s probably where I had an interest in open wheel racing.
“I enjoyed watching the likes of Michael Andretti bouncing over the curbs and seeing all the support categories. As a young kid, you sort of don’t really understand but enjoyed it as a young race fan.”
Through high school, he had a love of cars and went on to do Mechanical Engineering at Queensland University. He never did any childhood go karting or anything like that. But his first job was at Terry Skene’s Kingston Park Raceway, the local go kart hire track.
“That’s probably where I taught myself to drive where I could jump into the karts and stuff every now and again.”
While he continued to study Mechanical Engineering, he became heavily involved in the Formula SAE. The programme is held in Victoria each year and attracts university student teams from around the world. Rob even had a chance to driver an SAE car.
“I did that for three years. and through that I met Phil Laird who led Graphic Skills Racing and Wayne Wakefield in his Mazda 808 wagon.
“I went into his workshop on holidays and anytime that I could and just became a sponge and learnt what I could and took on any little job that he would give me. After a bit of time, he gave me an opportunity to drive one of their Improved Production cars, an RX3.”
That was his first ever proper circuit race, in 2008. All the while he was still a musician as well.
He never finished his Mechanical Engineering Degree, partly because he was so involved in the SAE programme, but his interest in the course waned as it very much orientated to mining, major construction and the like.
“I kind of went there and learnt what I wanted. I used the resource to learn what I wanted to learn, meet who I needed to meet, and then moved into driver training.
“I suppose even a lot of the people that I’m involved with to this day, I originally met through the driver training network, whether that was working for a manufacturer, or some stuff at Norwell.
He had an opportunity to run in the Australian Formula Ford Championship for a couple of rounds. That didn’t work out particularly well. Preparation was out of his hands as Rob worked various jobs to make it happen, which included being a piano player/singer and driver training.
It was at about that time that he married his wife Kate.
Through the driver training work, he met the Prefontaine family who had a Ford Mustang that Rob would prepare and Touring Cars Masters Pontiac Trans Am that he drove. They had an opening for someone to look after their fleet of cars which Rob added to his list of duties.
Although the Prefontaine work was part time, it did evolve to more work with further customers added. He also had the opportunity to do some TCM races.
“I really had to create a much more substantial workshop and business to be able to properly do the job.”
At the end of 2019, he did the eggs-in-one-basket plunge, which was coincided with the start of COVID. The music industry fell over completely.
Despite the circumstances, he much more requests for assistance. He never really went out seek customers. they came to him. Therefore, his expertise was broaden to include categories such as Toyota 86s, Queensland Production Sports Cars, Australian Trans-Am.
“They are probably my bread and butter categories and have been for the last five years, from the workshop to the racetrack.
“I do a lot of motorsport, wiring and electronics. There’s quite a big demand on me these days. But if I was to say what is my most valuable skill set is, it’s that I am someone who can not only prepare the car, but I can drive the car and put down some data for the customer.”
In terms of driving, besides the Formula Ford and TCM, he had driven Ginettas in grassroots 300km races and co-driven in TA2.
“If I had to explain both my driving and my mechanic story. In a very short nutshell, I’ve have made an opportunity for myself. Anytime that I’ve had chance to do something or learn something, I’ve really taken that.”
His very successful race car preparation business is called Encore Auto Sport, obviously a title that links back to his music days. At the moment he is averaging one flight a week as he travels to the various racetracks.
Currently his commitments are to the Hayden Hume who is racing in the Toyota 86 Scholarship Series and will also take part in Toyota GAZOO GR Cup. As well Hume has also raced in TA2 Muscle Cars.
An early highlight this year was as manager/engineer at the Bathurst 12 Hours. The Cedric Sbirrazzuoli/Dan Jilesen/Adam Hargraves IRC GT was crashed in practice, rebuilt overnight and won the Invitational class.
“You tend to take on a bit more than you’re probably comfortable with, but you get through it and move on.”
Business is good, as he now has staff and doubled the workshop space. It continues to grow and becomes more sustainable and efficient, which Rob puts down to the way that he goes about do the job.
