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Russell “The Enforcer” Ingall feels it’s time for for a pair with personality to win the Bathurst 1000 and it might as well be him and Paul “The Dude” Morris.
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Ingall, 44, has been rejuvenated by being competitive in the V8 Supercars championship again after a lean trot in his career and truly believes he and Morris have what it takes to knock the big guns over at Mount Panorama.
Plus he got a sign.
“I don’t know if it’s any indication or not but I bumped into this woman the other day and she is one of these people who has premonitions, you know,” said the two-time Bathurst champion.
“She forecasted both times when I won Bathurst and also when I won the championship.
“She reckons she had a premonition the other night that we won Bathurst.
“If she told me that ten months ago I would have gone, ‘Oh geez, I don’t know how your premonition’s going to hold up this year. I reckon you might have had Thai that night or something which may have messed your judgment up a bit.
“But saying that now, I tell you what, she may not be far away from the money.”
The Holden veteran was impressed with the team’s Phillip Island enduro form and said he hadn’t felt this good about Bathurst in a very long time.
“At Phillip Island, apart from my little effort of running out of talent there and having a bit of a slide off, we would have had a podium I reckon.
“Not too many people get it right at Phillip Island and there’s a lot of similarities with Bathurst so if you get the set-up right there it’s actually a great indication.”
Morris is voted V8 Supercars’ dirtiest driver year after year but Ingall thinks his contentious teammate is “just ahead of the game”.
“If someone’s in front of him who wants to block and carry on like an idiot – which a lot do in this category for 15th place – you think, ‘Mate, why bother? I’m faster than you so get out of the way or get ready for it.’
“To be quite honest, that’s the right way of thinking. As soon as our category as a whole start realising that’s the way we should go racing it’s going to be better for the sport.
“What a lot of people have forgotten is that we’re in the entertainment business,” Ingall added.
“If you want people to continue coming through the gate you need personalities like Paul, you need The Enforcer.
“We haven’t got the demographic of Formula One to get away with monotone people with no character. That’s not V8 Supercars. It just doesn’t gel.”
Ingall said the fact the team was under no pressure of hype was another positive.
“I like being at the back end of the pits, we call it the Bronx back there,” he said.
“They’ve got the body lines marked out in chalk down there. It’s fun, you can go out and talk to the crowd and that sort of thing. There’s no pressure.
“You go up the other end of the pits and they’re all walking around with their bloody $500 team shirts and pants on and all looking immaculate and it’s all a bit ‘yeah, yeah whatever’. I’m a bit over that. Come down where the real people are.
“All this politically correct jargon that goes on is not good for us, our public don’t want to see that. Our public want to see characters on and off the track.”
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