The Bathurst 1000 is V8 Supercars’ biggest event and its opportunity to take centre stage on the Australian sporting landscape.
The eight-hour drama that unfolded last Sunday delivered results that could have far-reaching implications.
The event had it all. Before the race record-breaking laps on a resurfaced track and damaged contenders provided the entrée for the craziness that would come in the 1000-kilometre endurance classic.
Race day saw the winning entry of Chaz Mostert and Paul Morris (Ford FG Falcon) start from last, crash at a corner thats deteriorating track surface forced an unprecedented hour-long race suspension, make 13 pitstops, and lead one and only lap, the final lap, as Jamie Whincup’s VF Commodore dramatically ran out of fuel.
It was pure drama seen by the second biggest crowd in the history of the event, with a weekend a crowd of 195,261, up on last year’s 183,480 crowd figure, and a peak of 3.775 million television viewers, with an average of 2.186 million.
But perhaps the lasting legacy will be in convincing the back-to-back winning manufacturer Ford that it needs to recommit to V8 Supercars.
Ford Australia president Bob Graziano was there to the see the factory Ford team win, at a time when the outfit and the manufacturer remain locked in negotiations for financial backing into 2015.
Speculation emerged over the weekend that Ford would pull its support for V8 Supercars next season, even though the Ford teams have committed to fielding the final Falcon, the FG X.
Even though V8 Supercars is looking to change the rulebook to allow the Falcon replacement, the two-door Mustang coupe, to race in the series, it remains to be seen whether the Blue Oval will keep racing when it closes its Australian production plant in 2016.
The fan outrage toward the manufacturer at the speculation only intensified following the win. After all, it was further proof of the importance of Australian touring cars and Bathurst to Ford Australia’s DNA. At a time when local manufacturing is ending, Ford needs that connection to its heritage more than ever beyond 2016.
Ford has in its 2015 line-up two Bathurst 1000 winners in its factory team, including a 22-year-old rising star in Mostert, and the new powerhouse alliance of two iconic racing outfits, Team Penske and Dick Johnson Racing, with returning former champion Marcos Ambrose leading the team.
To not support that line-up and walk away from its fan-base is hard to fathom.
The 2014 Bathurst 1000 was also a vindication of V8 Supercars opening the doors to non-Ford and Holden manufacturers.
There were four different manufacturers in the top four placings – Ford, Nissan, Holden and AMG Mercedes-Benz – for just the second time in the event’s history.
The fifth manufacturer, Volvo, led for most of the race and would have been in contention for the win had it not been for a late-race incident.
Fans have embraced the new (returning in a wider Australian touring-car sense) manufacturers, but the core of the fan-base remains Ford or Holden.
Hopefully the decision makers at Ford Australia realise that importance and are convinced by the success, on and off the track, of the 2014 Bathurst 1000.
Simoc
Guest
Nothing wrong with the fuel intake. Just the Whincup ego got in the way. Should have cruised it , but so should have van Gisbergen and Winterbottom and Lowdnes and , and maybe . But it worked out into an epic race.The coverage was excellent, probably the best we've seen.
Bomb78
Guest
In previous years the excuse for lack of HD is that there wasn't enough HD cameras in Australia to cover the whole track. Whilst I won't defend their choices, it must be the most expensive annual OB in Australian sport.
Ben Carter
Roar Guru
Hi Adrian - all I will say is that as someone who boycotted viewing the race for 15 years due to the two-make regulations, it was (a bit) like being back in the 1980s. Bathurst when I was a kid! Multiple manufacturers (as it should be) and the feeling that the best drivers had come back to the Mountain simply to conquer it as a prestige event in itself. Nissan sorta proving its enduro reliability after a mixed bag in the sprint rounds was good, disappointing arvo for Volvo, and Whincup - you'd think in a long-distance race you'd get the fuel intake right! But yeah, great to see it return to some splendor of what it used to be. Well, that's my view anyway! :-)
FrozenNorth
Guest
Not in HD??? That is ABSURD! The lack of HD back home is unfathomable. Just backward.
GD66
Guest
I learnt long ago to bypass the pre-race fluff, Rabbitz (not unlike ch 9's pre-rugby league match postulations) and yes, they certainly hammer the ads during the event, but to their credit they did shovel as many as possible through during the mid-ace track maintenance, and frequent safety car periods to attempt to show as much of the actual racing as possible. The drama and constant state of flux of the race was as dramatic as I can recall, things changed and people made mistakes afresh seemingly every ten minutes, with the white-knuckle tension of the closing laps almost unbearable, and the final elation of a Ford win by a youngster and a veteran was an outcome few could decry. I thought the 7 guys did a creditable job of conveying the drama into our loungerooms, and believe me I'm no ch 7 fanboy ! Finally, it makes me cringe every year when some bonehead producer decides we need more "colour" from amidst the crowd, and sends a nuffie up into the midst of the fans on the hill : Jo Griggs, that irritating Shelley Craft and the airhead Tom Williams have all been irrelevant invaders up there, but this year 7 sent Edwina Bartholomew along, and like everything else she touches, she did a more than acceptable job, a pleasant surprise.
Rabbitz
Roar Guru
It's just a pity the broadcasters (Seven) did such a poor job. Over three hours of inane rambling, incoherent garbage before the race, then nearly seven hours of advertisements with the occaisional cross to the race. It was woeful. It was instructive how many times the had to use the phrase "while we we away this happened..." You would think with almost 50 years of experience broadcasting the race, 180 cameras and millions upon millions of dollars worth of gear, the least they could do was show the race in HD, but no HD was reserved for the shopping network and re-runs.