V8 » Skaife calls time on glittering career

Never heard of him before today......

Mark Skaife has had a very successful racing career and admired for his talent and his input to motor sport from both sides of the Ford Holden camp.

Will be interesting to see who will replace him. I would think it will be Rick Kelly since he and Gath Tander were a very good pairing when they were team mates.

Been a fan of Mark for many years in the worlds best touring car series.Who to support now? Probably Frosty.Good luck for the future Mark.Hope to see racing something.

Tommi - why even bother commenting then?! you clearly haven't watched a v8 supercar race or you would have done!

On the other hand good career but not my favourite driver. possibly should have called it a day a couple of years ago when his team mates started to outpace him.

This is deja vu all over again PB back in the late 90's and now Skaife. I don't know if it was due to passion or being pushed to leave full time driving.

Zenith, I don't know where you come up with the admired by everyone. I know many fans who have never liked him, yet admired PB when he was at Holden. I have several memories of his arrogance and dummy spits over the years.

Let another Holden Hero pushed by TW and the Holden. It makes you question the team ownership issues as HRT as well.

Good to see the Holden faithful disagree with my comments. Funny thing is Russell Ingal is a few years older than Mark Skaife and he has a new lease on life with PMM. It is also strange that this has all happened up after the Bathurst loss, where Mark Skaife put the car into the wall.

The majority of other great Australian drivers have done a farewell season, where to say goodbye to the fans, yet Mark Skaife's retirement has come out of the blue.

Again this is bad form from TW towards one of Australia's great driver, just like Peter Brock and it's Deja Vu. HRT faithful, keep supporting Tom W in his support for great australian drivers like Brock and Skaife.

@Zenith - I heard Will Davison was to replace him?

I'll always remember Skaife shaking his fist at the side of the track to Russel Ingall...

Davison will replace Skaife. Skaife was pushed by Walkinshaw. Skaife is not a happy camper.
Argue this if you like, but Mark skaife is the most successful Australian driver in domestic series
5 Bathurst wins
5 Championship wins
3 Gold Star Championships

One certainly can't deny the success Skaife's had over the years, particularly through the nineties and into the early noughties. On the other hand, nobody can deny the last couple of years has seen a general decline in his car speed. That's been seriously exposed by GT in season 2008 at many rounds.

The thing that upsets me most about this is that my favourite driver now moves to the dark side to replace him...

Well done to Skaifey for a very successful career with many highlights. I followed him in the early days when he was with Nissan. In the Holden he seemed to get more and more arrogant. Success can quite often do that.

So, when my favourite of all time driver, Marcos Ambrose came into the series (2001-5) and thrashed him for a few years in the Stone Brothers Ford Falcon it gave me great delight.

Mark's best days are behind him, but I am suprised that he didn't race for another year. He is sitting just outside the Top 10 so he is beating many.

I guess it shows, that Walkinshaw is probably the owner of HRT. Sadly, newest round winner, Will Davison leaves Ford to replace him. Tragic...