GC500: Gold Coast motorsport’s most spectacular crash
One of the world’s most famous motorsports figures nearly died on the streets of Surfers Paradise when nine cars collided and disintegrated at speeds of more than 200km/h.
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THE ENGINES on the Gold Coast’s biggest event are revving again this weekend three years after the checkered flag last dropped.
The Surfers Paradise street circuit was packed away in October 2019 with organisers looking forward to a big race in 2020.
Of course, things didn’t pan out that way.
But two years of Covid-induced cancellations are over and GC500 is back.
Thanks to these delays, the event, which began in 1991 as the Gold Coast Indy Grand Prix, was unable to mark its 30th anniversary.
Drivers and fans will more than make up for it this weekend, while casting their memories back to some of the most memorable moments of the three decades of races the Gold Coast has witnessed.
This weekend’s race marks 20 years since one of Indy’s wildest moments.
It was October 2002 and the final hours of racing was upon the city when Tora Takagi’s car slammed into the barrier at high-speed sending shrapnel and debris flying,
Nine cars collided and disintegrated while at speeds of more than 200km/h
Takagi and fellow driver Adrian Fernandez were hospitalised and were lucky to escape the horror crash alive.
Fernandez spent four months in hospital.
The moment was famous captured by Bulletin photographer Wayne Jones in a moment he dubbed “hell on wheels”.
“All of a sudden out of the mist (of heavy rain) I saw this car coming straight for me, upside down and flying through the air,” said Jones of the crash that injured two drivers and severely disrupted the running of the rain-dogged 12th Indy race.
The 2002 event was also notable as the first time the V8 Supercars and Indy cars would hit the track with equal billing. In previous years, the Supercars had been a support race not even included in the V8 championship series but all that changed when V8 boss Tony Cochrane threatened to pull the V8s out after 2001.
Jason Bargwanna won the V8 race.
Miss Indy contestant Jennifer Hawkins, who would win Miss Universe two years later and become an Australian TV darling, was embroiled in drama when a man was arrested for stalking her and fellow podium winners Lauren Lillie and Rebecca Lund.
The girls were accompanied by burly security guards following the scare, which also included another man taking a swing at Miss Lillie.
The early 2000s proved to be Indy’s glory days, with crowds of more than 300,000 people annually partying in Surfers Pardise.
But factors other than the on-track action continued to make headlines.
The 2003 race saw Ryan Hunter-Reay win the Lexmark Indy and Russell Ingall a clean sweep of the V8 races.
But the event was best remembered for the devastating hailstorm which hit the Gold Coast on the Sunday afternoon, causing crashes and spin-outs galore.
Elsewhere on the Gold Coast, 474 homes were damaged in the savage hailstorm that ripped roofs off homes, shattered windows and killed scores of kangaroos, wallabies, pelicans and other birds at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.
Two bomb threats caused a massive security scare with spectators forced to evacuate grandstands and the start of the V8 supercars warm up was postponed by 30 minutes after two suspicious packages were found by track marshals.
The seedy side of Indy continued to grow with a porn stand erected at the track and sex workers revealing they pocketed more than $2000 a day to attend private balcony parties.
The 2004 race also saw a series of high-profile crashes, including one involving Canadian driver Patrick Carpenter who was hospitalised after surviving a horror 250km/h crash, glancing off the wall on the main straight and smashing through tyre barriers when the front wing of the car came loose at high speed.
He lost consciousness as paramedics hauled him from his car late into the 57-lap race, won by Brazilian Bruno Junqueira.
Drama unfolded in the V8 Supercars when Ford driver and series leader Marcus Ambrose hit the brakes on crossing the finish first on the Saturday, forcing Holden driver Rick Kelly to take evasive action. Ambrose was involved in a slanging match with Kelly’s teammate Greg Murphy when the latter interrupted a press conference to call Ambrose out on the tactic.
Meanwhile, controversial surrounded the actions of a crew aboard an Iroquois army helicopter who were disciplined after they held a sign from the chopper as it darted through the Surfers skyline encouraging women to “show us your tits”.
Despite this, the 2004 event attracted more than 309,000 people and was dubbed by Indy chairman John Cowley as “the best ever”.
Sadly, Indy only lasted another four years before ending.
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