As I started tapping away at the keyboard after watching the Supercars’ organisation’s hurried – and obviously unplanned – 2021 championship ‘victory celebration,’ all I could think was ‘thank goodness for everyone involved in the sorry little saga that it was Shane Robet Van Gisbergen who already had one hand on the Trophy heading into the final race of the ‘regular’ (i.e. pre this year’s re-jigged ‘grand finale’ meeting at Bathurst, this week and coming weekend ), at a wet, cool Sydney Motorsport Park on Sunday November 21.
I say ‘thank goodness’ it was Shane who was eventually acknowledged as the 2021 series champion elect – after some embarrassing buggering around on live TV, which, I would imagine, would have had someone a little less – laid back? – than our own SVG having a right old ‘spray’ about the way they were treated afterwards.
At the heart of the problem appeared to be an almost total lack of ‘what if’ preparedness by the usually totally slick broadcasting team for the early red flag and eventual abandonment of what was supposed to be the 11th and final race of the four round Sydney Super Series (or whatever it was called).
To be fair a race has not been totally abandoned (and with no points awarded) since the second leg of the Gold Coast 600) back in 2018. However after the messy-as end to the 2017 title fight at Newcastle the year before (2017), in which a devastated Scott McLaughlin lost the series title to a surprised Jamie Whincup after a tangle with Craig Lowndes in the final race, you’d think that, whoever the host broadcaster was, they would at least have worked out that the weather can – indeed – turn nasty at any track and at any time and that – at Sydney Motorsport Park on Sunday November 21 – there was a possibility – albeit a very small one earlier in the day – that the final race of the weekend might well be cancelled and a set of series’ points calculated as if it never happened.
Had this been done it would haves saved everyone involved a certain level of embarrassment, not the least Shane, who just wanted to be ’whooping ‘n hollering’ with his fellow team members, and the poor bugger from meeting and overall Sydney Cup sponsor Beaurepaires sponsor who for a moment there looked like he had no one to hand the oversized (and very much ceremonial) $25,000 winner’s cheque to.
Never mind, with Shane holding the Sydney Cup and his team member taking responsibility for the core flute cheque, normal service resumed ..with the promise of a ‘proper’ 2021 Championship podium at the final round at Bathurst this coming Sunday.
Which will be a ‘red letter’ day if – as they did last year, Van Gisbergen and his experienced co-driver Garth Tander manage to (whisper the next few words please) ‘win the ‘Big Race’ for a second year in a row.’
Both obviously, are more than capable of the feat, however, I’m of the opinion (superstition) that ‘the Mountain’ chooses the winner at Bathurst, and the only thing harder to do than win your first 1000km race there , is to win your second a year later.
So, you won’t see or hear me putting a commentator’s curse on our now two-time Australian Supercars championship title holder Shane Van Gisbergen and his four-time Bathurst 1000km race winning co-driver Garth Tander.
What I will say is that if Shane and his Aussie mate Garth are not red-hot favourites to win again this weekend, there has to be something very wrong with ‘odds’ system.
Both – for instance – are multi-year veterans of ‘Australasia’s Greatest Race,’ Tander claiming his first win in only his second full season in ‘the main game’ (2000) when he was driving for top privateer Gary Rogers’ GRM Motorsport squad.
Tander, originally from Western Australia, is also a winner of one of the two 24 Hour races contested at Mt Panorama in the early years of the new millennium, sharing the winning 427 cu in Holden Monaro with Nathan Pretty and Cameron McConville in 2002 then slipping back to second place in 2003 – albeit by just 0.2 of a second behind the sister 427 cu in-engined Monaro of Peter Brock, Greg Murphy, Jason Bright, and Rick Kelly.
That’s right, 0.2 seconds adrift after 24 hours…
In saying that, there was plenty of heartache and missed opportunities in the nine years that elapsed before Tander again tasted victory on ‘the Mountain’ (2009).
He was back on the top step of the podium two years later (2011) for win number three, but – again – it was another eight years before he and Shane Van Gisbergen were able to give him win number four.
Shane, of course, has quite some work to do to catch up with a bloke like Will Davison who is a two-time winner, let alone the likes of Garth Tander and Kiwi compatriot Greg Murphy (who are both now four-time winners of the Great Race).
The fact that Shane is such a well-rounded driver – across the key endurance disciplines in general and at the Mt Panorama circuit in particular- has to count for something, however. As must learning key lessons from some of the bitterest defeats any driver has experienced on ‘the Mountain.’
Who, for instance, can forget the heartbreak in the 2014 race – when after starting from pole and in the lead with just 10 laps to go van Gisbergen pitted for what everyone thought was going to be a fairly simple splash‘n’dash affair?
Unfortunately, the car’s starter motor was on the way out, and failed completely when it was asked to start the car one last time.
All good things, or so the old saying goes, anyway come to those who wait, and victory in the event formerly known as the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, was finally Shane Robert van Gisbergen’s on Sunday October 20, 2020.
As it turns out, of course, the win was not van Gisbergen’s first at Mt Panorama. THAT actually came back in 2016 in the Liqui Moly Bathurst 12-hour race on Sunday February 7, when he was invited to share the Tekno Autosport McLaren 650/5 GT3 with car owner Jonathan Webb and Portuguese endurance race specialist Alvaro Parente.
His second win in a major endurance race meeting at Mt Panorama was last year’s 1000 km one and his third was in the Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour production car race on Sunday April 04 this year.
With no conflicting Supercars commitments over the Easter weekend, Shane instead travelled back to Bathurst to join production car category stalwarts Shane Smolen and Rob Rubis behind the wheel of what turned out to be the race-winning BMW M4 F82, Shane only the second driver to win all three Bathurst enduros., the only other driver to do it, Paul ‘The Dude’ Morris! Deeply impressive.
But back to that wet, old afternoon in the pits at Sydney Motorsport Park.
What Shane has achieved this and last year alone beggar’s belief. From winning the Battle of Jack’s Ridge in a hot little Mitsubishi AP4 rally car to winning the NZ GP title race in a one-off return to NZ’s premier single-seater series, a six-race winning-streak on his return to Australia and the 2021 Repco Supercar series (which he subsequently won with a whole round to spare) says it all to me.
Bottom line?
The kid’s a genius. Misunderstood by some? Definitely. Underestimated by the odd other? No doubt. Yet, as the headline for this and last weeks’ columns assert; ‘On Ya Shane mate, you’ve done us proud!’
‘Very proud.’
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