Three-Generation Quinn Squad Set to Make Bathurst History

Three generations of the Quinn family will join forces and make Bathurst history when they tackle February’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour.

Tony Quinn will be joined by sons Kent and Klark, and grandson Ryder at the wheel of a Melbourne Performance Centre-run Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II for next year’s Intercontinental GT Challenge season-opener, marking one of most unique all-family driving combinations in what’s been a long-held dream for the Quinn’s.

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 at Mount Panorama.

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 episode of the Rusty’s Garage podcast launched on Wednesday in Australia.

“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.

The 2026 edition of the race won’t be the first time that members of the Quinn family have raced together at Bathurst.

Tony and Klark combined for all eight of their respective 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. A run in 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.