Whiteline Racing,
It Began with
Bobby
Bob Middleton has been involved in some form of speedway and circuit racing for thirty years. In this time he has raced oval track speedway various cars and circuits including an EH, Torana, Pontiac, Corvette, Camaro and even a go kart just to mention a few!
Bob competed in the 1994 Australian Grand Prix Thundersports in a Chevrolet Camaro and also ran in the inaugural 2000 Le Mans on the streets of Adelaide.
Bob also competed in numerous sport sedan meets taking out 3rd in the SA Title and the Dennis Dix Memorial at Mallala. Bob commenced racing Nascars as they were known then, in 1995 at which time it was commented that the SA driver was one of the fastest “rookie’s” in some five years having qualified at his first meet at 28.66 but doing laps as low as 28.2 during the course of the race at the Thunderdome.
Sporting magazines at the time said his first meet was a fabulous debut race. In each season Bob finished well up in the top 10 for the series. Along the way he won numerous awards including:
• Best presented car and crew several times
• Nascar encouragement award
• Hard Charger awards
• 1st place Thunderdome – Round 6 in the 1996/97 season
• 1996/97 Formula 1 GP in the Nascars & Bathurst in 1998
• 1999 raced as co-driver in a BMW at a 3 hour endurance race at Bathurst finishing 2nd in the class.
• Bob drove in the Super Truck Series for co-drivers with several podium finishes.
In January/February of 2002 Bob competed in the New Zealand championship of the supertrucks, driving for Inky Tulloch Motorsport in the second Super Truck. In 2002 Whiteline Racing then purchased and transported the Volvo to Australia to campaign the 2002 series in Australia with The Builder achieving several podium finishes. In 2003 the decision was made to retire the Volvo. From chassis up a new Freightliner with a C12 Caterpillar was born, competing in Australia and New Zealand with 2004 Bob ‘The Builder’ taking out the Trans Tasman Championship in New Zealand, followed by the Australian 2005 Championship.
Bob would also take out the National Title in 2006, 2007, 2008 and, in what was a close and controversial finish, 2nd in 2009. In 2009 Bob also ran in The Biante Touring Car Masters in a 1969 Camaro and would finish 11th in the Group 1 Category.
Celebrating Our Key Touring Car Masters Milestones
MARK KING
2014 PRO AMCHAMPION
ADAM BRESSINGTON
2017 PRO AMCHAMPION
JOEL HEINRICH
2025 PRO MASTERSCHAMPION
Touring Car Masters Title Winning Season
2025... What a season!
An incredible year for Whiteline Racing delivered a TCM championship and a whole lot of success.
It’s also added to the remarkable histories of two of the most well-used and most loved racing cars still operating at a national level these days!
Here’s a look back at the year by the numbers – and there are plenty of them.
SUMMARY
After many years of trying and previous class success, Whiteline finally claimed an outright TCM championship this year thanks to the efforts of #95 and Joel Heinrich.
Not only was it the team and Joel’s first title, but it was only the second time a Camaro has triumphed in TCM history and showed that there’s still life in the ‘OG’ TCM cars against the wave of new, younger models coming into the series.
The last Camaro title was TCM’s first season in 2007, when Steve Mason won the crown.
Since then, Whiteline won the Pro-Am class in 2014 (Mark King) and 2017 (Adam Bressington) but this year represented their first outright title.
For the first time ever in TCM there has been five different champions in the last five seasons; three aboard Holdens, one aboard a Ford and one the Whiteline Chev.
THE TEAM
All up, Whiteline has a combined 207 entries into TCM rounds, and across three cars the team has started 651 races.
The team now has achieved 55 TCM race wins and 178 top three race finishes from the 424 total TCM races contested in the series’ long history. It’s an impressive strike rate, for sure.
The team won three rounds in 2025, taking them to 16 round victories in TCM competition.
The team now has 44 round podium finishes in total and for the first time in their TCM history, placed a car on the outright round podium at every event in 2025.
Joel’s pair of poles this year takes the team to nine in total, while his four front row starts mean a Whiteline car has qualified on the front row on 17 occasions.
THE CARS
Now finally an outright championship winner, the 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS remains TCM’s most-raced car and also one of it’s most successful.
Adding six round starts to its tally, the car has now tackled 108 TCM rounds of the 128 held in series history.
It’s started 348 races which remains the most of any TCM car in series history and surely up there as the most of any car in national level Australian Motorsport – we’ll do some digging on that one. A huge 350 race milestone coming next year!
Joel’s nine race wins this year takes the car to 47 race wins in total with a half-century not far away.
The ’69 has won 14 rounds, scored 33 round podium finish and 9 pole positions.
The 1970 Camaro RS isn’t far from a milestone either; it’s now completed 93 TCM rounds and 314 races in its long history.
Scotty Cameron added the car’s eighth race win to its credit in Darwin this year, while finishing in the top three on six occasions this season – including an incredible four in a row across Bathurst and Sandown to bring home the year.
THE SERIES
Joel now has 20 career TCM race wins to his credit which is the sixth-most of all time in TCM; behind only Andrew Miedecke (21), Jim Richards (24), Gavin Bullas (29), Steven Johnson (68) and John Bowe (107).
Meanwhile, Scotty became just the 46th different winner of a TCM race when he scored his maiden W this year.
More than half of Chevrolet’s 87 TCM wins have been delivered by Whiteline Racing Camaro’s, with the brand and indeed the Camaro model second on the all-time list for most wins by a brand and by a single model.
The 2025 TCM season had nine different winners which is equal second-most of all time in the category’s history.
Stats by Richard Craill
Joel Heinrich
#95 Driver and TCM Championship Winner recaps the final round of 2025.
Time to get it done!
Sandown hasn’t really been a happy hunting ground for me over the years, its always been a place where I’ve been fast but whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.. But it was time to put a stop to that! We didn’t have any other choice. The championship was on the line.Pete and the team had been right through the car between rounds and i had plenty of confidence knowing we would have a reliable car to fight with.
Practice and qualifying started off okay, not completely comfortable with the car, but knowing we only had to finish within 5 spots of Stevie J, there wasn’t to much concern with a P4 start for race 1.
But first up we had the Trophy race, and wowee wasn’t that something! With a reverse grid of around 30 cars it was busy, cars running 2 and 3 wide for the first few laps. We settled in in the #95 and had the goal of staying out of trouble and getting to the chequered flag for those valuable points. Making up a few spots in the end we finished up under safety car.
Race 1, now the important stuff kicks off.. starting on the outside, all of a sudden I found myself 4 wide and on the far outside going into turn 1.This didn’t work out to well coming out in 7th, but as the race went on we chipped away and finished up 5th, not quite having the pace to track down the next group of cars.
Overnight Pete and the team made some sizable changes on the whiteline #95 trying to give us a better crack for Race 2. Starting out of 5th, we cleared Scotty in the #85 through turn 1, next set our sights on zukanovic for 3rd and quickly made that happen. The car was feel great and next on the list was Stevie J, i knew if we could get there it would make our title fight much easier in the last race.After a couple of laps i was onto the back of the mighty green mustang and was able to slip passed at the bottom of the hill! Pressing on with that immaculate black and gold mustang of foggy not to far in the distance, an outright race win would have been cool. Not quite being able to reach the back of the speedy mustang, but in the meantime it appeared Stevie J was having some issues and dropped down the order.THAT WAS IT! That race gave us enough points to seal Pro Master and the Outright TCM title! A lot of years in the making for Team Whiteline and i was very proud to be a part of a huge team effort in getting it done.
Race 3, all the pressure was off! Thankfully because it was all of a sudden very wet.Getting a good start, then at turn 4 was able to pounce on Foggy and steal the lead. We lead for a short time before Hansford capitalised on and error coming onto the back straight a lap later, just before the safety car came out. We had a brief shot at getting by on a restart, but just fell short with another safety car quickly coming out. That was it, P2 for the race, P1 for the round and P1 for the year!I can’t thank Bob and Shaz enough for the opportunity to drive their car, Glenn, Trevor and Margy being the ones that make it possible for the deal to happen. Pete, Birdman and their crews on the cars, keeping them going each and every weekend and the support from my family that allows me to go racing.
Its been a privilege to be a part of the Whiteline team with such a great group of people.