Today we are going to share a video put together by Seven Network, who are the TV rights holder to the V8 Supercar series. This is a video from I believe 2009, though it was just uploaded to YouTube by V8 Supercars in the last few months.
Russell Crowe provides the voice over for this piece, and there are some great clips (vision for our Aussie fans) of some of the historic moments of the races from years past.
While this is not the most comprehensive overview of the race I have seen, the music, along with Crowe’s voice over lend great weight to this clip.
It is a lap still talked about with reverence. In 2003, in the Top 10 qualifying shootout for the Bathurst 1000, Kiwi, Greg Murphy, put down a lap that was not bettered until Friday practice in 2010 by Craig Lownes. In a series where the difference in Top 10 qualifying, even on a long track like Mount Panarama is measured in tenths and thousandths Greg Murphy blew the place up!
Murphy was an astonishing 1.0962 seconds quicker than second place qualifier John Bowe, himself, a legend of “The Mountain”. For those not familiar with V8 Supercar racing, the context of this may be a bit difficult, but just listen to Matty White and Neil Crompton call the lap, and that should be all you need to understand just how significant this lap was.
Austrailia’s great race, the Bathurst 1000 takes place this weekend. While many outside of Australia are not familar with the race, for that countries motorsports fans and athletes it is the pinicle of racing for them. Just as the Indy 500 or Daytona 500 are for American’s, the Monaco Grand Prix or the 24 Hours of Le Mans are for Sports Car fans, that is what Bathurst meens to Australians.
The Bathurst track at Mount Panarama is a “street course” but think of it more as a mountain road turned into a racetrack rather than the typical image that comes to mind when you think street course. We will be showing videos throughout the week of the track, laps of the track, and exciting moments for years past.
To kick things off today we are going to talk about Cam Waters. Cam, who is 16 years old, just won the chance to co-drive a car at this years Bathurst in the Shannons Supercar Showdown reality show run by the Kelly Brothers Racing and shown on Channel 7 in Australia.
It was a typical reality show format, “x” number come in, every week there are challenge and at the end of the show, someone goes home. The show was OK, but it was clear there were two or three contestents that were above and beyond everyone else, and Cam was one of them. The final contest was Cam against Andy and each had two laps to put in a qualifying time in a V8 Supercar, the winner would be the one with the quickest lap time. In the end, Cam won going a tenth and a half quicker than Andy.
Did we mention that Cam doesn’t even have a full license to drive on the road? However he Cam is in contention to win the Australian Formula Ford championship, so it’s not like he doesn’t have credentials!
So, here is a quick video put together to introduce eveyone to Cam Waters from the Shannons Supercar Showdown reality show. Good luck to Cam, the youngest person to drive a V8 Supercar in competition, and everyone else racing up at “The Mountain” this weekend.
