Championship Series Dunlop Series iRacing Series

Primary Car	Ford Falcon FG
Engineer	Blake Smith
Origins	Melbourne, Victoria, December 18, 1974
Resides	Melbourne, Victoria
Peronsonal Status	Fiancé, Lia
Outside of racing	Cricket, driver training
Street ride	Ford Falcon XR6
Wiki	Steve_Owen_(racing_driver)
Team Website	vipv8.com.au

One of only two repeat champions in the history of the V8 Supercars Development Series, Steve Owen has been around V8 Supercar racing for over a decade, but not always as a full-time driver.

He first appeared as an endurance driver with Garry Rogers Motorsport in 1999 at Bathurst, but it took until 2005 for him to nail down a full-time driver in the V8 Supercars Championship with Britek Motorsport and, even then, he was forced to miss a handful of races due to grid capacity issues.

This season he will again drive in the colours of VIP Petfoods under the REC (Racing Entitlements Contract) owned by Paul Morris, however as part of an expanded four-car squad at Dick Johnson Racing given Morris’ team has essentially closed down.

It’s something of a return to DJR for Owen, who drove one of the team’s Jim Beam Falcons in the endurance races at Phillip Island and Bathurst in 2008.

Owen moves from a Commodore to a Triple Eight-built Falcon for 2012, the same car as used by Jonathon Webb for the last two years and prior to that by Craig Lowndes in the first part of the 2009 season.

Owen, who won the Development Series in 2008 and again in 2010, really stamped his credentials down during a stint as Jamie Whincup’s endurance co-driver at TeamVodafone in 2010.

The duo took pole at Phillip Island, finished runners-up at Bathurst and then won on the Gold Coast, and it was those results that helped propel Owen back into a full-time drive last season in the V8SC for the first time since 2007.

The quietly spoken racer is a graduate of Formula Ford and went back to the junior open wheel category in 2004 in a bid to re-launch his career and stay on the radar of V8 Supercar teams.

Originally from Melbourne, he now is based on the Gold Coast with fiancé Lia.