{"id":950509,"date":"2026-11-03T01:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T01:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/950509\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T01:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T01:40:13","slug":"triple-eight-junior-oli-wickham-set-for-trans-am-debut-at-sandown-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/950509\/","title":{"rendered":"Triple Eight junior Oli Wickham set for Trans Am debut at Sandown 500"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/whincup-x-wickham.jpg\" class=\"sc-hero-img\" alt=\"Triple Eight junior set for Trans Am debut at Sandown 500\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOli Wickham with Triple Eight&#8217;s Jamie Whincup. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n<p>The 17-year-old Tasmanian is set to race a Ford Mustang run by Gerard McLeod\u2019s Maverick Performance.<\/p>\n<p>It will sport the Shaw and Partners livery that <a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/drivers\/will-brown\/\" class=\"scdh-autolink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Will Brown<\/a> used for his maiden Supercars race win with Erebus Motorsport at Sydney Motorsport Park in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Wickham was signed to a long-term Triple Eight development deal earlier this year, adding a Mustang Cup program to his Formula Ford commitments.<\/p>\n<p>The Trans Am chance follows the Mustang Cup finale at Sandown last weekend, where he scored two poles and a race victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am incredibly exited to make my debut in the final round of the Trans Am Series at Sandown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really enjoyed the recent test day at Winton with Gerard and the team at Maverick Performance, the Ford Mustang was fun to drive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is awesome to take another big step forward and to learn as I continue to progress my driving and racing career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe racing in the category looks tough, so I am really excited to learn as much as I can from the experienced regulars.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom the outside looking in, Trans Am has produced drivers that have gone on and achieved great things in Australian motorsport, and I hope I can follow their pathway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t thank Jamie (Whincup) and the entire team at Triple Eight Race Engineering enough for allowing me to pursue this opportunity to further broaden my skill sets in preparation for what the future may bring.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Triple Eight is yet to confirm Wickham\u2019s program for next season, although is known to be keen on running the youngster in the Super2 Series when Gen3 cars become eligible in 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oli Wickham with Triple Eight&#8217;s Jamie Whincup. Image: Supplied The 17-year-old Tasmanian is set to race a Ford&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,12357,85],"class_list":["post-950509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}