Robert Frederick Jane (18 December 1929 – 28 September 2018) was an Australian race car driver and prominent entrepreneur and business tycoon. A four-time winner of the Armstrong 500, the race that became the prestigious Bathurst 1000 and a four-time Australian Touring Car Champion, Jane was well known for his chain of tyre retailers, Bob Jane T-Marts. Jane was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 2000.
Early life
Bob Jane grew up in Brunswick, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne. His passion for racing began in the early 1950s as a champion bicycle rider, holding many state records before turning to four wheels. In the later 1950s, he started Bob Jane Autoland, a company that distributed parts for Jaguar and Alfa Romeo. Through this venture, a love of cars and motor sport blossomed and he first entered competitive racing in Australia in 1956; by 1960, he was racing with some of Australia's top sedan drivers.
In 1961, Jane and co-driver Harry Firth won the Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island, Victoria, driving a Mercedes-Benz 220SE. Jane and Firth, driving a Ford Falcon XL, won the race again the following year, the last before the event moved to Mount Panorama at Bathurst, New South Wales, retaining the Armstrong 500 name.[1] Jane, driving for the Ford works team, won a further two Armstrong 500s at the new venue, the first with Firth in 1963 and the second in 1964 with George Reynolds as co-driver.[2][3] Despite the change of venue, Jane is officially credited with winning Australia's most famous endurance race four times in a row, something no other driver, not even nine-time race winner Peter Brock, has ever done.
Jane retired from competitive motor racing at the end of 1981 due to sciatica. At the time of his retirement he had been driving a 6.0 litre Chevrolet Monza in the Australian Sports Sedan Championship. After giving up driving, Jane asked touring car star Peter Brock to drive the Monza in the re-formed Australian GT Championship. Brock raced the car in 1982 and 1983 before Jane sold the car in early 1984 to Re-Car owner Allan Browne.
Bob Jane T-Marts
A Bob Jane T-Marts store, 2022
In 1965, Jane opened the first Bob Jane T-Marts store in Melbourne. The company remains an independent, family-owned business to this day; Bob's son, Rodney Jane, is the current CEO. In 2011, 81-year-old Jane resigned as chairman of T-Marts citing difficulties in the relationship with his son Rodney.[4]
From 1984 To 1997 Bob Jane formed a cross shareholding partnership with Ian Diffen. Bob Jane operated in Queensland and Ian Richard Diffen operated Ian Diffen's World of Tyres and Mufflers in Western Australia.
Bob Jane T-Marts is the only major tyre retailer in Australia who do not sell retread tyres. Jane's personal reason for this is that his second eldest daughter Georgina had died in a car accident in 1991 due to a retreaded tyre blowing out.[5]
Having lost control of Bob Jane T-Marts, Jane attempted to create a new tyre business using his name. It was blocked by son Rodney in court which also ruled Jane pay legal costs. In May 2015, his Diggers Rest farm was seized by the state sheriff in order to settle the outstanding costs.[6]
From 1981 until 1984 the races were run under Formula Mondial regulations and Jane succeeded in attracting many of the best Formula One drivers of the era. Each race from 1981 to 1984 was won by those driving the popular Ralt RT4-Ford.
For the 1982 Australian Grand Prix, Jane again attracted F1 drivers in Piquet, Laffite, the then retired Jones, plus future Formula One World Champion Alain Prost. Frenchman Prost won the 100 lap race from Laffite and 1981 winner Roberto Moreno. When Prost later won his second AGP in Adelaide in 1986 to win his second of four Formula One World Championships, he became the only driver to ever win the Australian Grand Prix in both World Championship and non-championship formats.
The 1983 race, while only attracting one current F1 driver in Jacques Laffite, as well as Alan Jones, who had made an abortive F1 comeback earlier in the year, did attract 24 entries (mostly the Ford powered RT4), including former winner Moreno, Geoff Brabham and future F1 driver Allen Berg. Moreno won his second AGP from local drivers John Smith and Laffite. Geoff Brabham finished 4th with Jones in 5th and Charlie O'Brien. Reigning Australian Drivers' ChampionAlfredo Costanzo led the race early in his Tiga FA81 before suffering a differential failure on lap 25. Moreno would later claim that had 'Alfie' not retired then he would likely have won as he didn't believe he would have caught the Australian. The 1983 race was the last time the Grand Prix was included as a round of the Australian Drivers' Championship.
During 1984 it was announced that from 1985, the Australian Grand Prix would be held on the Streets of Adelaide and would be the 16th and final round of the 1985 Formula One season, giving the Grand Prix "World Championship" status for the first time in its history. Despite this, Jane was still able to successfully attract current Formula One drivers to participate in the 1984 Australian Grand Prix. Headlining the 'imports' was three time (including 1984) World Champion Niki Lauda, and 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg. Joining them were 1984 Ligier drivers Andrea de Cesaris and François Hesnault and 1981 and 1983 AGP winner Roberto Moreno to face off against local stars Costanzo and 1984 Gold Star champion John Bowe. Moreno would win his 3rd AGP in 4 years from Rosberg, who fought back from a bad start and a collision another car, with de Cesaris putting in the drive of the race to finish 3rd after starting early from the pit lane and being almost half a lap down when he took the green flag.
NASCAR
Jane is credited with bringing stock car racing to Australia. Long resistant to oval racing (seeing it as dull and monotonous when compared to circuit racing, although speedway (Dirt track racing), held on smaller ¼ or ⅓ mile oval tracks, has been popular in Australia since the 1920s), Australian motorsport fans finally had their own NASCAR-style high banked superspeedway when Jane spent A$54 million building the Thunderdome on the grounds of Calder Park Raceway. The 1.801 km (1.119 mi) Thunderdome, with 24° banking in the turns, was built as a quad-oval with Jane modelling the track on the famous Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The race was marred by an early multi-car crash in turns 3 and 4 involving 8 cars including the Ford Thunderbird of local touring car champion Dick Johnson, and the Oldsmobile of Allan Grice who, after running out of brakes, couldn't slow down coming off the back straight and ran into the wreck at speed. Grice, whose car was a write-off, suffered a broken collarbone and was taken to hospital for x-rays.
Jane also owned the Adelaide International Raceway which features the only other paved NASCAR type oval in Australia with its half mile Speedway Super Bowl, which, unlike the Thunderdome, is a permanent part of the road circuit.
In 1992, Jane and Sydney based speedway promoter and Channel 7 television commentator Mike Raymond also announced plans to turn the old half mile harness racing track that surrounded the Parramatta Speedway in Sydney into a paved oval for NASCAR and the Australian AUSCAR category, giving Australia a third paved oval speedway. However, the project never got past the planning stage.
Personal life
On 23 February 2007, Jane was granted a 12-month intervention order against his estranged wife, Laree Jane (born 1967). At the time, she was 39 years old and they had been married for 20 years. He accused her of threatening to shoot him and threatening him with a kitchen knife.[7] In a Victorian County Court, on 22 January 2009, a jury found Laree Jane not guilty of five charges, including assault, related to the domestic dispute.[8]
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