Date of birth:

20.05.1981

Birthplace:

Camperdown Sydney NSW

Lives:

Melbourne

Marital Status:

Wife, Renee

Height:

180cm

Weight:

72kg

Children:

Son – Oliver

Nickname:

Frosty

Interests:

Golf, Mountain bike riding, football, Playstation

Car number:

5

BIO

Competitive from a young age, Mark was a talented soccer star for Blacktown United before winning the local shopping centre raffle for a dirt bike, launching him into 80cc motorbike racing.

Competing against the likes of Australian Supercross Champion Chad Reed, motorsport came naturally to the eight-year-old whose dad Jim won two national sprint car titles and mum June raced a Group C Mini.

His subsequent meteoric karting career, where he claimed 10 national and 25 state titles, culminated in an invitation to race in the 1999 All-Champions meeting at Suzuka, Japan, where Mark competed against drivers including Lewis Hamilton.

Mark’s karting dominance caught the attention of Ford Australia, who backed him to enter the Victorian Formula Ford Championship in 2001.

He astonished onlookers by finishing runner-up in his debut car racing season, despite missing a round, which earned him the Ford Kart Stars Scholarship and its accompanying Ford sponsorship for the 2002 (National) Australian Formula Ford Championship where again claimed the runner-up spot along with Rookie of the Year honours.

Mark’s performances earned him a Stone Brothers Racing (SBR) V8 Supercar test aged just 21. That led to a full-time drive in the 2003 Konica V8 Supercar Championship.

No one could have predicted his success, with a near perfect record of pole positions and race wins delivering him the title in his debut year. This led to SBR enlisting him as an enduro driver for the main game and Mark made his V8 Supercar Championship Series debut at the Sandown 500 event, finishing 11th.

He spent the 2004 and 2005 V8 Supercar seasons gaining top-tier experience with Larkham Motor Sport before getting the call from the factory Ford team.

Mark signed with FPR in 2006 and gained success from year one where a stellar performance saw him finish third overall.
He finished fifth and claimed the pole position award for being the best qualifier in 2007 before falling just short of the title in 2008 with second in the championship and three pole positions, six round podiums and seven race wins.

2009 provided mixed results for Mark where he claimed fifth in the championship, before returning to the front during the 2010 season where be battled for the title up to the last event where he eventually claimed third overall.

Buoyed by strong late-season pace and with a year of working with race engineer and FPR technical director, Campbell Little, Mark is well-placed for success in 2011.

Long-time sponsor Orrcon Steel will again be behind ‘Frosty’ as he enters his sixth successive season with FPR.