THE McLeods will become just the second family to have had three generations compete in the Great Race when Cameron suits up for PremiAir Racing at the 2024 Repco Bathurst 1000.
Super2 rookie McLeod’s drive alongside Tim Slade was confirmed today following a successful test aboard the team’s #23 Nulon Camaro last month.
His big chance comes two years after Aaron Seton followed in the footsteps of father Glenn and 1965 Great Race-winning grandfather Bo to write the event’s maiden third-generation story.
McLeod, 19, is the grandson of 1987 Great Race winner Peter and son of Ryan, whose time behind the wheel included five Bathurst 1000 starts.
Cameron’s Great Race call-up is the latest step in a hugely promising junior career that has seen the youngster tackle countless categories since graduating from karts in 2020.
His resume already includes Mount Panorama experience in Super2, Super3 and V8 Touring Car machinery, as well as starts in the Bathurst 6 Hour and Bathurst 12 Hour races.
By contrast, Peter was 32 years old when he raced a car for the first time in 1980, and was on the grid at the Bathurst 1000 just a few months later!
A Mazda dealer in Wollongong, McLeod’s first five Great Race starts came in RX-7 machinery prepared by his own privateer team.
That included a fine fifth-place finish with co-driver Graeme Bailey in 1983, the same year that McLeod and his Slick 50-backed car won the Australian Endurance Championship.
McLeod switched to a Holden Commodore amid the move to Group A rules in 1985, running in the top-five of that year’s race before gearbox failure struck within 40 laps of the finish.
The privateer again fielded his own Commodore in the 1986 and ’88 races – in between which he was part of an upset victory in the 1987 event with Peter Brock’s Mobil Dealer Team.
Brock had offered McLeod a drive in the team’s #10 car alongside Jon Crooke when intended co-driver Neil Crompton failed to secure the required racing licence in time.
Car #10 proved the one to be in on race day as, following McLeod’s double-stint at the start, it was taken over by Brock and David Parsons following engine failure for the #05 car.
The McLeod/Brock/Parsons combination finished in third place and were elevated to victory more than a month later when the two Eggenberger Sierras were disqualified for a technical infringement.
McLeod opted to scale back his racing activities at the end of 1988, but returned to the Great Race six years later sharing an ex-Mick Donaher VL Commodore with son Ryan and Kevin Burton.
The father-son combination made a further two starts together in 1995 and ’96 following the purchase of an ex-Holden Racing Team Commodore.
While 1996 marked Peter’s 12th and final Great Race start, Ryan returned for two more attempts in 1997 and 2000.
The former came in an OAMPS Insurance Commodore with Darren Pate and the second in an eye-catching Chiko Roll-backed Commodore entry alongside Wayne Wakefield.
Coincidentally, Ryan McLeod and Wakefield share a very much unwanted Bathurst 1000 statistic; the most starts (five each) without a finish.
Ryan’s subsequent roles in the Great Race from the other side of pit wall included engineering Slade’s first Bathurst start with Paul Morris Motorsports in 2009.
Cameron’s Super2 program is very much a father-son affair, with Ryan a driving force behind the running of the PremiAir ZB Commodore that is currently being rebuilt following its Perth rollover.
The third-generation talent, meanwhile, has made no secret of what always shaped as his burning career ambition.
“I didn’t really have an option, it was in my blood,” McLeod said on stage the 2023 Supercars Gala Awards. “Obviously I want to continue in my granddad’s steps and win the Bathurst 1000.”
