The long-time voice of the sport has been cut from the TV broadcast this year as part of a shake-up that also included the removal of Mark Skaife.
Crompton is officially on site at Sydney Motorsport Park to oversee the management of the GR Cup season opener, which his business has long managed.
But he’s also spending time with BJR, having recently taken up a consulting role with the squad run by his long-time friend.
“It’s good. It’s a restoration of something that I did a couple of moons back,” said Crompton of a return to a team role.
“It’s different and it’s exciting. We’re old friends, you know, we started racing together a long time ago on dirt bikes, and we’ve been in parallel for a long period of time.
“Obviously I know all the people here very well. It’s a very different world for me, but one that I’m looking forward to.”
Secure your spot today.
Crompton has been largely brought into BJR to look at a bigger-picture business strategy, but is lending a hand wherever required.
“Last night at one o’clock in the morning I’m washing driver race suits and jocks, so things have gone downhill!” he quipped.
Crompton noted he’ll be in both the BJR and Walkinshaw TWG garages during the weekend as the two squads debut their new Toyota Supras.
A Toyota ambassador for the last 18 years, Crompton has been the architect of the company’s long-awaited Supercars entry and is now watching a long-term dream come to life.
“This is the third time lucky. This conversation’s come up a couple of times,” he said of convincing Toyota to go Supercars racing.
“Phil Harrison, who’s been a long-time loyal soldier who works in my office, dropped a document that I’d completely forgotten about from 10 or 15 years ago on my desk just recently covering this very topic and I re-read it just for fun.
“It’s been a long journey.”
Toyota’s Supercars entry adds to the company’s existing Australian motorsport commitments in the GR Cup and Australian Rally Championship.
“It’s hugely satisfying linking ARC and what Neal, Harry, and Lewis [Bates] have done so successfully for so long, so proudly for Toyota, together with GR Cup,” he said.
“Depending on the creative accounting, there’s either 10 or 11 drivers in the Supercar field this year that have graduated from that category.
“Now having that grassroots feeder to feed into this [Supercars effort]… it would be very close to the single biggest investment in motorsport by an OEM.”
Crompton stressed the driver “pathway” now in place from GR Cup to Supercars was one of the aims of former Toyota marketing VP Sean Hanley.
Hanley was the front-man for Toyota’s V8 entry before departing the role at the start of 2026, but is also trackside in Sydney for the occasion.
“One of the things that aggravated Sean was effectively training drivers and handing high quality operators off to other OEMs,” said Crompton.
“Well, we’re gonna put a stop to that!”
Discussion about this post