Hear em roar: Craig Lowndes will star for Holden’s Bathurst farewell on Fox Sports pop-up channel
Peter Brock taught him everything he knows about being king of the mountain. Now Craig Lowndes is giving it one last shot as part of Holden’s farewell to Bathurst today.
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Travelling at speeds of up to 300km/hour, it seems a given the fleet of V8 Supercars taking to Mount Panorama in Bathurst this weekend will be able to social distance like no other sport.
But such is the insidious nature of the global pandemic – which has brought most codes and industries to their knees in 2020 – even motorsport, and the iconic Bathurst 1000, has been forced to make some painful gear changes this year.
Responding to the crisis back in March, the pro-driving teams and its governing body were quick to realise it would have to set aside old rivalries if it was to survive the ‘new normal.’
But as Red Bull co-driver and Fox Sports commentator Craig Lowndes tells The BINGE Guide, getting the show back on the road and all teams out of lockdown and ready to race has brought the best out of the sport.
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“It’s really been a joint effort, in the sense that everyone has just been helping out, getting cars prepared, and to the next event” Lowndes says.
Victorian teams had to make a dash for the NSW border when the state’s strict lockdown measures were put in place – which saw the northern teams open their garages and offer their staff to help get a full complement of competitors back in the race.
Lowndes says the co-operation “galvanised what Supercars are all about.”
“When it comes to putting on a show, we all want to continue to race. We all want to travel and drivers want to be behind the wheel. So doing whatever we can to make that happen has been the priority … no doubt about it,” he explains.
That’s not to say come race day today, the competitive spirit levels won’t be as high as ever, with Scott McLaughlin setting the pace to win back-to-back titles.
Still, Lowndes and his teammate Jamie Whincup will be giving it all they’ve got.
“Once you strap a helmet on, put drivers in cars, they want to beat each other,” Lowndes says, “but behind the scenes, it’s definitely been a massive effort to make sure the show is on the road.”
It’s off the track that this iconic race to be crowned ‘king of the mountain’ will look different.
For the first time, the crowds of adoring race fans who make the pilgrimage to Mount Panorama each year, will be limited to 4000 spectators each day.
The biggest race on any revhead’s calendar, more than 201,000 people converged on the town in central west of NSW last year; with that figure to drop dramatically in 2020, with the closure of its popular camp sites.
As Lowndes explains, the enthusiasm and energy of those crowds who gather at the top of the mountain, along Conrod Straight and in the packed stands opposite pit lane gave this race the X-Factor for all involved.
“This is my 27th time entering Bathurst but the first without that atmosphere and I’m really going to miss it,” he says.
“I remember walking onto the racetrack with [the late, great Peter] Brock and he used to thrive off it. I do and for me, it’s going to be really bizarre, especially going across the top of the mountain for the start of the race and the final laps, when you could usually hear the crowd going off. It’s the only circuit where that happens, so to race without [crowds] is going to be quite strange.”
Brock, a legend of the Holden Racing Team, still holds the record with nine wins, but for Lowndes his idol’s dominance goes beyond statistics – with that legacy to be explored in an upcoming ABC documentary, Brock: Over The Top [8.30pm, Tuesday, November 3].
Walking on to the track for his first co-drive back in 1994, Lowndes reveals it was Brock who graciously shared with the newcomer his intimate knowledge of the track he made his own.
“I was struggling to find pace and it really wasn’t until Peter sat me down and talked through a lap of Bathurst that I got my head around it,” he says.
Entirely from memory, Australia’s greatest ever race car driver shared “where your break markers should be, where to position the car, how to approach corners, where to slow the car across the top of the mountain,” Lowndes recalls.
“He said ‘don’t over break it over Skyline because it upsets the car and it doesn’t give you any confidence to get down into Forest Elbow.’ He told me ‘Conrod Straight was the moment you get to relax, have a look around, look across to the Blue Mountains on your right; then across to the west on your left.”
Lowndes, who has won Bathurst seven times, says: “you’re literally just looking at the clouds from there and seeing what the conditions are you’re facing, before closing out the lap at Murray’s Corner.”
The finer points of the track and how to tame them are now something Lowndes is happy to pass on to the next generation of drivers, as Brock once did for him.
The generosity of Brock made his sudden death, in a rally car crash in Perth 14 years ago, so heartbreaking for those closest to him, including his racing cohorts.
But Lowndes is adamant it was the spirit of the great man which lead him to victory at Bathurst, during the first race – renamed in his honour – after Brock’s passing.
“I’m not superstitious,” he admits, “but I know when we won in ‘06, that I had him with me. That was very special. Now, I go there every year and I just have that same connection as he had with the track, with the town. Just seeing everyone come alive.”
Sadly, a huge part of Brock’s history – representing the Holden brand – ends this year, as the company fields its last factory team.
“You wouldn’t think at this point that there wouldn’t be a Holden factory team campaigning beyond this year,” Lowndes says, “so it’s going to be very emotional for a lot of people; not only the drivers and the teams, but fans also because of their passion for the brand. It will be something that we’re going to celebrate rather than commiserate,” he adds, “because it’s been such a part of Australian life.”
Adding to his driving duties, Lowndes will also be miked up to play a commentary role for Fox Sports – which has dedicated a pop-up channel to this weekend’s iconic race.
Technology has improved over the years, with Lowndes’ car fitted with seven “lipstick-size” cameras, which allow “the fans to be literally in the driver’s seat.”
The strong combinations of co-drivers this year, Lowndes predicts, will make up for limited racing experience and see teams go hell for leather.
“From that green light going out, to the chequered flag, those 161 laps are going to be intense. It’s not going to be the tortoise and the hare … it’s going to flat out from start to finish. Taking out safety cars and crashes, it’ll probably be one of the fastest races we’ve seen in history.”
* Fox Sports’ Bathurst pop-up airs today on channel 506 and streaming on Foxtel GO and Kayo