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Family, friends and motorsport figures gathered at the Southport Church of Christ following Little’s death last month after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer.
Engineer Little was a titan of the Australian motorsport industry, playing a key role in the success of Supercars teams including Stone Brothers Racing, Triple Eight and Ford Performance Racing.
The venue was packed with those to have crossed paths with Little during his four-decade career, including drivers Craig Lowndes, Jamie Whincup, Mark Winterbottom, Russell Ingall, Will Davison, Craig Baird and Tomas Mezera.
Among many other paddock identities were Ross and Jimmy Stone, David Stuart, Dick Johnson, Adrian Burgess, Mark Dutton, Ludo Lacroix, Charlie Schwerkolt and Paul Ceprnich.
Attendees from Supercars included CEO Shane Howard, while the Gen3 Ford Mustang prototype – a project which Little was a key part of during his time as the category’s technical manager – was on display with ‘C.Little’ on the windows.
Those in the room – many dressed in motorsport shirts upon request from the family – heard from Campbell’s older brother Tony and daughters Jess, Georgia and Ellyse, who provided insights on Little the family man.
They shared stories of his love of adventure, be it trips camping and skiing, and getting out on the water via boat or jet ski, as well as being “a total softie” as a father.
Motor racing speakers were former driver and team owner turned TV pundit Mark Larkham and experienced engineer and manager Barry Hay, both long-time friends of Little.
They worked with Little during his time at SBR, while Larkham also linked with Little this year while the latter was in a behind-the-scenes role for the television broadcast.
Larkham pulled together an extensive photo and video tribute, which concluded with a slide labelling Little the ‘Pit Lane GOAT’ (Greatest Of All Time).
“It’s been a hard week putting together some of this imagery,” Larkham said.
“I started to think, looking at all the cars, the vision, all the people that he’s touched, the cars he’s had his fingerprints on that have been successful, the drivers that he’s mentored that have been successful…
“He’s been across engines, he’s been across electronics, he’s been across data analysis, chassis builds, shock absorbers, he’s been a race engineer, a mentor to young drivers, a friend to so many of us.
“But he’s done that across four decades.
“I started to think,” continued Larkham, holding back tears as he drew towards his conclusion.
“For everyone I know in this sport, and there are some greats, there are some greats in this room, some great engineers… but I can’t think of anyone that has brought everything to the table that Campbell did and has across four decades of time, across so many cars, drivers and people in our game.
“I’m going to call it. I’m going to say he’s the greatest technical guy to grace our pitlane. I mean that. There are other greats, but he’s done so much.”
The service was a mixture of heartfelt sincerity and laughter.
The wise-cracking Hay provided plenty of the latter, from stories of Little’s mid-life dating adventures, to his love of chocolate, questionable fashion sense and various efforts to rescue Hay himself from mischief.
A key theme of the service was Little’s love of laughter, which came in stark contrast to the stern look – described by brother Tony as his “resting cranky face” – that Little often carried.
“This is how it needed to finish,” Hay concluded. “No tears, no tissues, no bullshit. We just needed to have a laugh, it’s exactly what he would have wanted.
“It’s fair to say that as a motorsport family, we’ve lost our star player. But we’ve done the right thing, we’ve finished the right way.”
Hay did also bring a serious tone, heralding Little as a sounding board for fatherly advice, and summing up his standing in the motorsport industry.
“Without a doubt the best compliment I think you can get in motorsport is that you’re a real racer. That’s 100 percent the best thing you can do because that just means you’re hardcore, you’re the real deal,” he said.
“Racing is full of pretenders, egomaniacs, movers and shakers, all of these other blokes, but if you go, ‘we’ll put that bloke on, he’s a real racer’, you don’t get a bigger free kick than that.
“And that was absolutely Cam, for sure.”
Click here to watch back video of the funeral service.
