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The experienced sport administrator’s appointment was announced in the past seven days, with co-owner Rod Nash retaining the Managing Director title but now confirming he has assumed team principal duties, following the departure of former CEO/Team Principal Tim Edwards.
Brookhouse’s CV is dominated by basketball and golf, with a smattering of cricket and a stint as a director at Vicsport, following an earlier career in banking.
The move to bring an executive from another sport into Supercars is hardly groundbreaking, given Dick Johnson Racing did just that when it appointed Australian Rules Football figure David Noble a year ago.
DJR, though, was still solely a race team – it now has a separate division for the Ford Supercar engine supply – whereas Tickford’s move to look outside the sport was driven by a partial pivot towards engineering business and a need to commercialise that activity.
Brookhouse, nevertheless, is a motorsport fan and although his official start is not until February 19, he was in attendance during a Super2 test day and the team’s first Supercars Championship test day of the year at Winton, earlier this week.
There, he told selected media including Speedcafe, that he is “a fan of motor racing and have been since I was a kid, following Dick Johnson and Brocky back in the day and that sort of thing.
“So, I’ve been to a lot of Supercar V8 races over the journey and I’ve been to club car races, historic races, and those sorts of things.
“Even in my banking days, I used to look after Philip Island race track, so it’s been a passion; all sport’s a passion for me.”
Brookhouse was, until recently, the inaugural CEO of the Tasmania JackJumpers, the newest National Basketball League franchise.
The JackJumpers enjoyed on- and off-court success under his watch, including qualification for multiple finals series and regular sellout crowds, with the team even credited for boosting participation in the sport in Tasmania.
He may never spin a spanner on a Tickford Mustang, but his value lies elsewhere – and that includes potentially bringing value to the Supercars Championship broadly.
“I guess, the allure of this role is that the organisation’s more holistic than just a racing team,” added Brookhouse.
“It’s a big organisation in terms of the commercialisation of it, and making sure that the financial impact of all the business reflects across the business.
“It’s a going to be a challenge, there’s no doubt about that.
“I think that all professional sport lives and dies by its relationships and its ability to generate income from various sources, and I don’t think that this is any different.
“There’s that much technical ability in that garage down there that they don’t really need me keeping an eye on things.
“Obviously, I’ll certainly learn along the way and be a sponge, but you don’t have to be a pilot to run Qantas – that’s the reality of it – and I think that it’s more about a holistic approach of even some new ideas and how we can actually make the sport better and then keep growing.
“That’s the challenge for all of us along pit lane.
“The teams as a conglomerate, whilst we’ll fight out there on the track, off the track, we’ve got to be trying to make the sport better, and working with Supercars to do that.
“I think that’s probably the most important thing you can do as a leader in the industry.”
Tickford fields Cam Waters and Thomas Randle in the Supercars Championship in 2024, along with Brad Vaughan, Lochie Dalton, and Rylan Gray in Super2.
