BATHURST is a place of memories.
There’s no other place in the sport like it and no other race like the Bathurst 1000.
Sure the 12-Hour is longer and the six-hour something different all together, but there’s just something about the October classic each year that makes it more special.
It’s the history, the crowd, the tradition and the crazy drama that unfolds, seemingly each and every year. It’s the fact that since before I could walk I was watching every minute and have done so every year since.
Here’s a few personal moments that burn bright in my mind from the October classic.
What are yours? Jump on to our social media channels and let us know what pops out in your mind from Great Race – and do enjoy the 2018 edition; like every other one, it’s sure to make some new memories to keep for the years to come.
1995 – LARRY’S CHARGE
WHEN I was a kid, there was Peter Brock and then there was Larry Perkins, and if the former couldn’t win, I sure as hell hoped it was the latter.
So while I don’t remember exactly how I felt, I can’t imagine that I was in a very good mood 30 laps into the ’95 Great Race.
Perkins was about to go a lap down to the flying Winfield Commodore of Mark Skaife and Jim Richards, while Brock was out with engine dramas after 05 completed the Holden Racing Team’s annus horribilis before Thomas Mezera could even jump aboard.
Things were not looking good – but preservation paid off and as the day unfolded so my hopes for one of the good guys winning grew and grew.
I vividly remember the two Falcons – Seton in one, Johnson in the other – colliding at Reid Park and ending the day for car 17. As a Holden fan, this was no bad thing.
I remember the Gibson car fading and ultimately retiring and I remember the gradual realisation that, yes, the Castrol Commodore was still a chance here.
But of all the moments that stick in my mind from that October day, it was Mike Raymond’s commentary of Larry Perkins passing Alan Jones down Conrod late in the day.
“Here Comes Larry,” was the perfect summation of the day and the hair on the back of my neck still stands alert when I think of it.
I remember feeling little sympathy for poor Glenn Seton – remember, I was an Eleven year old Holden diehard – when he expired and nothing but joy when LP coaxed No. 11 across the line a few laps later.
Here Comes Larry. There’s been some great commentary at that place over the years, but those three words remain perhaps the most memorable of all for me.
2007 – ELECTRIFYING FINISH
I HAD been to Bathurst for racing before 2007, but not for the Great Race so this was an exciting moment in my then-young career.
To be brutally honest, little of the first 100 laps remains vivid these days and nor should it – it wasn’t particularly exciting.
And yet when the clouds came over in the final third, and the threat of rain began to increase, so did the atmosphere.
The events of that year are well documented elsewhere, so I won’t bore you with a less than adequate summary here. But I do have memories – more like feelings – from that great day.
I vividly recall the electricity in the air as the field imploded when the rain came – Winterbottom off, the cars in the fence at the top. And then the battle for the lead.
When Lowndes and Johnson were going at it, struggling to hold on to their 600hp Falcons in terrible conditions, you could cut the atmosphere with a cricket stump it was so thick. The crowd was overflowing with excitement and the roar when Car 17 hit the front, remarkably, was like nothing I’ve experienced at that place since. It wasn’t that much quieter when Craig returned serve a few laps later.
One of the great races.
2014 – INSANE FINISH!
THIS race remains fresh in the memory of many, especially those who were there – but it delivered one of the more memorable moments of my broadcasting career.
Calling the race with colleagues Tony Schibeci and Brett ‘Crusher’ Murray for Melbourne Radio Station SEN, we’d survived the red flag delay and all the other dramas and had battled through to the closing stages that saw Jamie Whincup seemingly trying to run himself out of fuel.
All the while, Crusher was cheering on the Ford Performance Racing Falcon that was hot in pursuit.
Not only had the Chaz Mostert / Paul Morris car started from the back, it had flown under the radar all day only to work their way into contention late so it was already a great story.
What’s more – in Morris, it was co-driven by one of Crusher’s best mates who was yet to win the Big One.
I’ve never heard our version of that last lap since, but my living memory of it is the three of us yelling at the top of our voice, all at the same time, along with everyone else in the media centre as the drama unfolded.
Between Tony and I, Crusher was just yelling “Go.. Go!” as Mostert closed on Whincup, fist pumping with no regard for impartiality what so ever – and nor should it.
I believe it was great radio, because we were as sucked into the emotion and drama of it all as anyone else, though it remains hard to believe it all actually happened at all.
I wonder what this year will bring..
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