The third and final round of the Australian Super Trucks is fast approaching, set to take place at Winton Motor Raceway from November 1-2.
Big Rigs spoke with Australian National Truck Racing Organisation (ANTRO) vice president and truck racing veteran Leon Thorpe ahead of the race.
Leon Thorpe is all set for a comeback to the track in 2025. Image: Lee ThorpeLeon, 69, was heavily involved in the Australian Super Trucks around 20 years ago and is all set to make a comeback to the racetrack alongside his son Lee Thorpe for the 2025 racing season.
“I used to race back in the day,” said Leon, “I had the BP sponsored Kenworth T900.”
The Australian Super Trucks started in 1987, with the first race held at Calder Park Raceway. Back then, the trucks were standard on-road trucks, with a race seat and harness. Today however, the trucks are very heavily modified.
“It used to be really big back then and bring in really big crowds. That slowed a little over the years but it’s becoming really popular again and bringing in more and more people,” Leon added.
Based in Melbourne, Leon has been around trucks his whole working life and used to run his own fleet, doing express runs between Melbourne and Sydney every night. At one point, he and his brother owned 47 trucks.
He took a step back from that as the years progressed and launched Thorpe Custom Trucks, focussing on truck customisation, specifically race trucks.
“The next minute I got asked to come back into truck racing,” he said.
Leon took on the vice president role at ANTRO this year. The association is made up of a group of passionate volunteers, who are focussed on growing the truck racing following.
The plan was for Leon to be back racing sooner, however that just wasn’t to be.
Two years ago, he came across an opportunity that seemed too good to pass up. The race truck that had won the British truck racing title for the past seven years straight was on the market.
Luckily for Leon, he had someone on the ground who could check the truck out. “It looked great but then when the owner sent it over, he stripped a lot of things off the truck and changed everything out,” he revealed.
“I had a beautiful boat that I sold to buy that truck and the reason I bought it was because it was the number one truck in British racing.”
He’s since spent the past two years rebuilding the truck in the hope of having race ready for the year ahead. “You learn from your mistakes, but we learnt the hard way.”
This Mercedes is set to be race-ready, with Leon behind the wheel for the next season. Image: Lee ThorpeThat truck, a pink Mercedes-Benz, will be driven by Lee, who is a qualified diesel mechanic, while Leon will drive a black Kenworth T900 that he’s also working on.
“The pink truck from Europe should have been ready to go and already racing, but we’ll rebuild it our way. Race trucks are rebuilt from the ground up. There’s a lot of engine work, automatics, chassis, cabin, roll cage, different suspension. A truck is designed for 62 tonne, whereas these are only 6 tonne, so it’s totally different principles. The trucks are also limited to 160km/h,” Leon said.
“There are five trucks I’m currently building. They’re all being put together now.
“It’s been a bit of a nightmare, but once we get them going, it will be good. I’m also in the process of building two transporter trailers too. One will be used to transport our trucks around and the other one will be used to sell merchandise.”
Leon revealed that his truck customisation business has become more of a hobby now. “We bling all our own trucks and my son does a few of his own trucks too. With his new ideas and my old ideas, we build show trucks.
“We don’t do any off-the-shelf bolt-on stuff, it’s all custom built. They’re hot rod trucks.
“Although we’re scaling that part of the business back a bit to concentrate on the race trucks. Ideally I’d like to just build race trucks.”
Currently, there are around 12 trucks racing each round, however that’s set to bump to about 15 trucks by next year.
Leon and Lee are also working on this modified Kenworth T900, which Lee will race in 2025. Image: Lee ThorpeThough Leon will be watching on from the sidelines again in the next few weeks, he’s revealed ANTRO has some big plans in the pipeline, including a race truck show that’s currently in the works.
“We’re hoping to launch a Super Trucks truck show next year too, which would include truck drag racing too,” he said.
The team behind the Australian Super Trucks are also hoping to grow its popularity.
Currently, it already has a strong social media following, with its most popular TikTok video racking up over 1.3 million views.
“Everyone should come along to the next race. Over the years, they’ve really cleaned up the series and it’s very professional,” added Leon.
“We want to convey a professional image, not a cowboy image. We have a very high standard of driving and there are some people competing who are exceptional drivers. One day, we hope Australian Super Trucks can compete against the world’s very best.”
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