Wild scenes as a snake delays co-driver qualifiers at Bathurst

Mount Panorama’s infamous wildlife has struck again with a brown snake on the track delaying the co-driver qualifiers for the Bathurst 1000.. Watch the wild moment here.

Mount Panorama’s infamous wildlife has struck again.

In another classic Bathurst 1000 moment, a venomous snake slithered across the track at the start of the co-drivers only practice session on Thursday afternoon.

After an oil spill down Conrod Straight from an earlier support category was cleaned up, the start of the co-driver session was then further delayed by the appearance of the brown snake at Forrest’s Elbow.

A brave track marshall arrived to scoop up the snake in a hessian bag to remove it from the track so the session could get underway after a 20-minute delay.

“Just be aware there will be a possible delay here, we have a wildlife issue we are dealing with,” race control announced to all teams after the snake was spotted on track.

“We are working on a wildlife issue, currently.”

Mount Panorama is no stranger to viral wildlife moments.

There are always plenty of sightings of Kangaroos hopping across the mountain, while a spiky Echidna forced the safety car to come out during the 2021 Bathurst 1000 after it wandered onto the track.

Dick Johnson Racing driver Will Davison could see the light side of the scaly visitor.

“First smile of the day, seeing a snake at Forrest’s Elbow,” Davison quipped.

“Surely there is a wrangler up there somewhere or a handler that can take care of it and be a hero, hero of the day I reckon.

“But I ain’t going near that thing.”

Seven-time Supercars champion and Broc Feeney’s co-driver Jamie Whincup said the track marshall deserved a “six-pack”.

“What a crazy session. Oil, brown snake. I didn’t think we were going to get out but thank god for that marshall slash snake wrangler,” Whincup said.

“Literally, if we were waiting for someone from town, we wouldn’t have got out. So I’ll go shout him a six pack later on.”

Supercars commentator Mark Skaife also squirmed at the thought of the slippery track invader when colleague Neil Crompton joked he should remove it.

“Can you just go up there and grab that by the tail and sort that out for us please?,” Crompton said.

Skaife responded: “Definitely not. I could not think of a worse job. That’s not just a little brown snake … have a look at the size of it.”

Originally published as Wild scenes as a snake delays co-driver qualifiers at Bathurst