-
Holden's Jason Richards - Source: Photosport -
Related
I have to confess, I'm not a huge motorsport fan but during the final few laps of the Bathurst 1000 car race, my eyeballs were glued to the TV set.
The sight of Kiwis Jason Richards and Greg Murphy hurtling their V8 Holdens across the top of Mount Panorama was something to behold.
Four days earlier, I made the annual TVNZ Australia Correspondent's trek to Bathurst to interview the likes of Richards and Murphy and talk about ...well torque. TVNZ Cameraman Jason and I drifted into Bathurst after a 3.5 hour journey through the Blue Mountains from Sydney. The TVNZ stationwagon weaved its way through the Bathurst streets, past houses sporting the colours and slogans of Holden and Ford.
It's been a few years since I last went to Bathurst, but memories soon flooded back when I opened the car door, that this was a cold place. The bitter chill didn't deter the hard working grid girls though. Dressed in low cut tops and hot pants, they were only too happy to pose with gruff looking blokes for photos that are now on mechanics' walls across the country.
We moved over a walkway that stretched across the back straight to the press centre, which was perched on top of pit lane. Here, we set up our work station which was basically a laptop computer (to edit with), cables (to plug into stuff) and a couple of chairs. The 30 or so media already in the centre appeared to be hardened motorsport writers who shot me a look as if to be asking who the new guy was.
Armed with a pit lane map, we made our way to Greg Murphy's garage where he was happily chatting to fans and signing autographs. Murphy's race car was up on jacks with no wheels, like it had been parked in the Bronx overnight. I interviewed Greg for about 10 minutes before he zipped up his inflammable driving suit and got behind the wheel of his $500,000 Holden for a few test laps. As always, he was confident of a putting in a good performance at Bathurst. As a four-time winner, the mountain is now one of his favourite circuits.
I wandered back past the grid girls who were by now posing for their third mechanics wall calendar to seek out Jason Richards. I found him heading back to the pits from a drivers briefing. We walked and talked as fans pushed flags, hats and posters upon him to sign. Like Murphy, Richards is more than happy to tag some property with a big magic marker.
Richards told me he needed to find an extra two and a half seconds in this race because that's how close he and Greg Murphy came to winning it last year when they teamed up. Jason was also happy show me around the garage and explain tyre and fuel strategies as his mechanics beavered away. I actually learned a lot, but nothing I could put into practice during my daily four km drives to and from the TVNZ office.
We then filmed some action shots of Richards, Murphy and co ripping around the track. Then it was back to the press centre to edit the story and send it back to TVNZ HQ in Auckland. Each voice over into the microphone had to be timed in between the noise of V8 engines roaring past the press centre.
With Bathurst accommodation all booked out, the closest digs we could get were a 40 minute drive away in a town called Orange. As it happens, Orange is even colder than Bathurst. I was thankful for the warmth the Turners Vineyard Motor Inn offered weary TVNZ employees and the cracking T-bone steak.
We were back at the track at 9am to see how our Kiwis would fare in qualifying. The timing of the qualifying sessions coincided with my deadline of 4pm which meant I had to keep updating my story as the lap times continually changed the order of the leader board. I must have re-written a certain bit of script four times in the minutes leading up to our deadline before we forced the edited story through the internet pipe to TVNZ in Auckland.
As non-rights holders we were then politely asked to leave as the weekend coverage was exclusive for those TV networks that forked out big dollars for exclusive access. The rain made it a long drive home and at times I wished it was Murphy or Richards behind the wheel...
World News Video
-
Dangerous rush to Everest summit (1:59)
-
Dozens killed in Syrian massacre (2:09)
-
'King of Romance' competes in Eurovision (1:46)
