THREE GENERATIONS of the Quinn family will join forces and make Bathurst history when they tackle the 2026 Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour.
Tony Quinn will be joined by sons Kent and Klark, and Grandson Ryder to create arguably the most unique all-family driving combination in Bathurst history when they achieve a long-held family dream of racing three generations together on the Mountain.
Quinn – who is in New Zealand amid preparations for this weekend’s opening round of the Repco NextGen New Zealand Championship, a series promoted by his business – confirmed the plans on the latest shortcast episode of the popular Rusty’s Garage podcast launched today (Wednesday, 29 October).
The Quinn ‘awesome foursome’ will race a Melbourne Performance Centre-prepared Audi R8 LMS GT3 in the around-the-clock affair next February.
In the process, they will create Bathurst history as the first team featuring both three generations and four family members sharing the driving duties – a first for the long history of motorsport at Mount Panorama.
“I always had this vision or this dream that one day it would be great to drive at an endurance event with my son, Klark, and grandson, Ryder,” Quinn told Rusty’s Garage Host, Greg Rust.
“But obviously, I had many years to wait until Ryder was old enough. People say to me, what do you have on your bucket list? I really don’t have anything because I’ve kind of done all the things that I wanted to do except for this endurance thing.
“Doing an endurance race is probably the most enjoyable thing if things go reasonably well.
“But then through a series of life things, we all went off and did our different things. Klark’s kind of retired from racing. Ryder grew up and started racing. Kent has been racing a lot recently as well. And I just carried on bumbling around the tracks and doing my thing.
“And it’s only recently that we’ve managed to decide maybe it’s something that Popeye – they call me Popeye – that Popeye would love to do, it means a lot to him so we should all make a little bit of a special effort and make it happen.”
Quinn outlined their plans which were focused on above everything on enjoying the experience and then making it to the finish, with zero ambitions to challenge for a result.
“The plan is to go there as the Quinn boys and have a crack, but there is no interest in competing competitively,” he said.
“We basically just want to go there, and we want to start. I’ve promised that Ryder can qualify and do the first two stints or five stints, I don’t care. And then we just need to stay, we need to survive, and we need to finish. So that’s the plan.”
2026 won’t be the first time that members of the Quinn family have raced together on the Mountain.
Tony and Klark combined for all eight of their respective Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour starts and, with an array of star co-drivers, banked a runner-up finish in 2008, third in 2011 and 2013 and fourth in 2014. 2017 represented the most recent Bathurst starts from both Tony and Klark.
Ryder is yet to compete in the 12-Hour race however does have GT4 and Porsche Carrera Cup experience on the Mountain, while Kent has tackled the Bathurst 6 Hour plus Aussie Racing Cars series races at Bathurst.
“I never thought that we would achieve the dream, I never – I thought that was it gone,” Quinn said. “But no. I’m going to deliberately go up and down Pit Lane and explain to all these teams and drivers that, look, we’re not racing with you. We’re not racing against you. We’re not going to take your prize or whatever. So don’t take us out, don’t hit us, we’ll get out of the way for sure.
“I can’t speak on Ryder’s behalf, but you know, for the rest of us it’s not a career move for us.”
Quinn has elected to partner with Melbourne Performance Centre to field one of their well-proven Audi R8 GT3 entries for the family squad.
“Troy (Russell, MPC co-owner) is going to look after us and stuff like that. It’s going to have no branding on it. It’s going to be a purple car – because purple is Popeye’s favourite colour – and it’s just going to have a big white Q on it. You know, the Quinn boys, that’s what we’re doing. No Game Over, none of that stuff. Just really simple so that it’ll stand out in the crowd for these European drivers.. Don’t touch the purple car!
“I get… I get a wee bit emotional about the whole thing. It’s strange. I’ve hired and fired thousands of people and confronted unions and confronted all sorts of dramas in my life, but this, this gets me.
“I’m hoping it’s going to be bloody raining so that people won’t see my tears of joy!”
The full interview with Quinn, which details more of the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour plans – including some notable people slated to help behind the scenes, is available now on the Rusty’s Garage podcast, available via the Listnr app.
The Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour will be held on the February 13-15 weekend next year with a world-class field to return to the Mountain in 2026.
Tickets, Grandstand seats, Camping and corporate experiences are on sale via the Bathurst 12 Hour website.
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