On Saturday at the ITM Taupo Super440, Toyota scored its first Repco Supercars Championship race win thanks to Ryan Wood and Walkinshaw TWG Racing.
Crompton, the former voice of Supercars, was instrumental in bringing the Japanese brand to the championship.
Since being axed from his commentary role, Crompton has remained present at events with the Toyota teams Walkinshaw TWG Racing and Brad Jones Racing.
This week, Toyota formally confirmed Crompton’s role as a motorsport advisor to the brand.
After a torturous start to the season at Sydney, Toyota has enjoyed a meteoric rise with victory in just the ninth race of the Supercars season.
In his first speaking appearance on a Supercars broadcast, Crompton reflected on the effort to bring Toyota to the championship.
“What a moment. What an incredible moment,” said Crompton.
“Three years… a lot of hard work,” he said, choking back tears.
“I told you not to do this to me, I’ll get myself together.
“The last six months has been challenging.
“I battled and knocked away cancer a few years ago, and then I set myself a goal to not look back and try and be positive and make good things happen.
“This is a great thing for the sport. There was huge disbelief in the first instance.”
Crompton rattled off a long list of names who he thanked for supporting his vision, including former Toyota Australia marketing boss Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia executive Vin Naido, Toyota Australia CEO Matthew Callachor, Toyota Australia motorsport boss Ben Casagrande and Supercars bosses Barclay Nettlefold and Shane Howard.
“Sorry it’s a roll call and as presenter we hate doing this, but there were a heap of people that had to actually get in behind and believe,” said Crompton.
“It’s a very hard thing to do. So without an enormous amount of people, including Bruce Stewart and Carl Faux and Adam Austin who was up there [on the podium], this wouldn’t have happened.
“They believed, and they believed a wanker. Because there was no logical reason to believe in what I said, but we stayed the course and this great group of men and women together with the same group down at BJR have worked their backsides off… just a huge moment in my life.”
Speaking about the final moments of the race, Crompton described the feeling as “just ridiculous” as he watched Wood win with Mostert just coming up short of second.
“We nearly got a one-two out of it,” said Crompton.
“Just extraordinary. I was supposed to be a person who works with words, I don’t have any at the moment.”
Crompton thanked presenter Jess Yates, the Supercars’ broadcast team, as well as friends and colleagues for supporting him.
“Sorry about the snotty nose,” he ended.
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