The 2025 season marked the fifth year of Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Supercheap Auto Wildcard program, created to give emerging talent an opportunity at Supercars’ highest level alongside some of the sport’s most experienced names. For 2025, reigning Super2 Champion Zach Bates stepped into the striking #888 Supercheap Auto Chevrolet Camaro, continuing a program that had previously helped launch the Supercars careers of drivers including Broc Feeney, Declan Fraser, Zane Goddard and Cooper Murray.
Bates made his solo Supercars debut at Queensland Raceway’s Ipswich Super 440, immediately showing his potential by progressing to the Sunday Top Ten Shootout. He then joined forces with seven-time Bathurst winner Craig Lowndes for the Enduro Cup, with the pair taking the #888 Camaro to The Bend 500 before tackling Australian motorsport’s biggest race, the Bathurst 1000. The combination brought together one of the sport’s most decorated veterans and one of its brightest young prospects – exactly the philosophy behind the Supercheap Auto Wildcard program.
The 2025 campaign also carried special significance for Triple Eight. Bathurst marked Lowndes’ final race with the team, bringing to a close an extraordinary 21-year association that included six of his seven Bathurst victories. It made the final appearance of the #888 Supercheap Auto Camaro an important chapter in Triple Eight history – celebrating the team’s past through Lowndes while continuing to invest in its sport’s future through Bates.
