TWO-TIME Supercars Championship race winner Michael Caruso missed the Bathurst 1000 last year for the first time in 20 years.
A full-time regular in the Supercars paddock since the late 2000s, the former karting champ was a popular figure that scored his two Supercars Championship race wins in Darwin – one in 2009 for Garry Rogers Motorsport, and the other in 2016 for Nissan Motorsport.
After living in Melbourne during his time with GRM and the Kelly-run Nissan operation, he moved back to his native Sydney with wife Dani and their children after the completion of his full-time Supercars driving career.
The now 42-year-old works thesedays as Director of Sales at Syndeticom, a leading provider of IT solutions and services for businesses across Australia.
But 18 years ago, on this day – January 15 – back in 2008, Caruso was in the motorsport headlines having locked in a deal to graduate into a full-time V8 Supercar seat with Garry Rogers Motorsport.
You can read all about it here in Issue 37 of Motorsport eNews in our archive of issues.
Caruso replaced the dumped Dean Canto at GRM, who opened up on his axing here in an episode of the V8 Sleuth Podcast in 2025.
The 2007 Fujitsu Series runner-up, Caruso took over the team’s #34 Valvoline Commodore VE and joined Lee Holdsworth as his teammate.
“It’s been a goal that I’ve wanted to achieve for a while,” Caruso told eNews at the time.
Caruso after his win in Darwin in 2009. Photo: an1images.com / Ross Gibb.
“It’s a great seat at Garry’s and the opportunity is there to be taken. They’ve been building on their potential for some time and Lee has been showing some good pace last year. With the new HMS engines coming, it’s certainly a good spot to be in.”
Caruso ended up staying with GRM until the end of 2012, the main highlight being his breakthrough first V8 Supercar win in Darwin in 2009 and podium finish that year at Bathurst alongside Holdsworth.
He made 71 Supercars Championship round starts in this stint with the team, though made a return in 2019 for two rounds as a fill-in for Richie Stanaway at Townsville and Queensland Raceway.
His last Supercars start came as Mark Winterbottom’s Team 18 Camaro co-driver at Bathurst in 2024, his 172nd and most recent Supercars Championship round start.
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