What happened in MOTOR 18 years ago? We drove the safety car at the 2003 Bathurst 1000

My name’s not Murphy and it sounds nothing like Skaife. But, as friends and family and anyone with a functioning ear will hear me brag for years to come, the honest to Jesus H Christ truth is this: I led the 2003 V8 Supercar Bathurst 1000.

Yep, out in front! For 18 laps, I was the leader. No one could get past me, despite their constant weaving. It was a supreme display of driving ability and talent, maintaining pace and lap speed that many could match, but no one could better – or that’s how I tell it. Did you see me on TV? Of course you did. I was in the official AVESCO safety car: the rocketship Audi RS6.

The plan was simple: a day in the life of the safety car to see what this lark is all about. Oh, did we mention we wanted to drive it? Yes, that little request was met with some ahhs and errs by CAMS head honcho Tim Schenken, but MOTOR is never one to take a back seat. So we didn’t. Initially.

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But first we should deal with the deal. If the V8 Supercar series is a two-horse race, what is the Four-Ring Circus doing out in front?

Officially it’s Audi’s platform to showcase its performance models to the target market, specifically the V8/Bathurst viewer rather than attendee. But the deeper answer, which will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the financial success of AVESCO, is money. Obviously Audi and AVESCO are tight lipped on the details, but rumours suggest the transaction consisted of around $250,000 cash, plus a few Audi loan cars.

The RS6’s credibility card is its V8 exhaust note, so throbbing and thunderous that birds drop from the sky. A Remus cat-back, three-inch twin-tip exhaust system is just a lahdee-dah way of saying drain-pipe. All else is mechanically stock, which is a bit like saying Arnie is fit: twin-turbo 4.2-litre V8, DOHC, 40 valves, 331kW, 560Nm. Son of a bitch!

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The first taste I get is Saturday’s 25-lap Konica V8 race. Yep, actually driving it! CAMS-appointed regular safety car driver Peter Dane is behind me and CAMS safety car observer Bill Crouch is riding shotgun. We’re all in civvies, no helmets, and while we have radios for two frequencies, it’s the voice of Tim Schenken in the race control tower that we’re guided by. This is, literally, a radio control car.

On the grid in front of 22 V8 Supercars, the five-minute board hangs from the start tower, our signal to bolt. Not one to disappoint the 52,000 VB-fuelled crowd, I nail the throttle and the RS6 squats and bellows out an unmuffled blast that evokes a cheer. Bathurst fans cheering an Audi? This obviously isn’t 1998! The RS6 accelerates to 120km/h quicker than Crouch can say “Dean, keep it under 80!” About four minutes later we pit and slot into the car’s home for the weekend, a bay alongside the pitlane exit.

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The RS6’s in-car TV is invaluable throughout the weekend, Channel 10’s live telecast offering us a head start on any carnage. On lap seven a Holden stops at Griffin’s Bend. We immediately fire up the engine and 20 seconds later Schenken calls: “Safety car stand by.” The SC boards and yellow flags are on display at Hell Corner, but we wait to pick up race leader Warren Luff.

Schenken directs: “Scramble Safety Car!” and we blast onto Mountain Straight to 60km/h – and empty mirrors. No problem – better early than late – and under orders we drop to 20km/h until Luff’s silver DJR car rounds turn one. With him in tow, we increase to 60, and once past the stranded car, at the orders of Schenken, we increase speed to 80km/h.

If you think 80km/h looks slow on TV, try it with 331kW underfoot and a snake of 600hp V8 Supercars up your butt. We’re in third gear for much of the lap, but when exiting downhill from Forest’s Elbow, it creeps to 90km/h and I have to grab second gear to drop it down.

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Dane tells me the correct way to enter the pits: “Go in as late as you’re comfortable with before jinking into pitlane.” Little does he know I’m the last of the late jinkers! Rounding Forest’s Elbow, Crouch extinguishes the light bar and the field starts weaving, Luff up my duff. We go under the Dunlop Bridge, I stay in the middle of the road. Dane reminds me: “Turn into pitlane.” And another, more concerned “TURN NOW!” as I jink hard left and brush across the face of the first rubber bollard and straight-line the pit esses like I actually know what I’m doing.

Saturday’s Konica race was a ‘test’ to see if I was up to Sunday’s 1000km task. Though passing with flying colours and getting the go-ahead, CAMS decided overnight we would be relegated to the back seat and only one of us (journo or photographer) could be in the car at the one time. “This is a serious job,” we’re continually reminded by CAMS, with a clear purpose that there’s no room for joyriders.

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On Sunday morning, after Dane takes three RAAF guys for a hot-lap ride around Mt Panorama, shooter Wielecki and I wait next to the RS6 for 45 minutes so we can procure some in-car driving shots up pitlane. Dane then jumps in and drives off to the grid, throwing a “plans change” line, leaving us stranded and bewildered in the pits. We’ve gone from driver’s seat, back seat, one seat, to no seat at all.

Some persistence allows us to take some pics in the driver’s seat on the grid, but from then on I’m a passenger. Or Thomas is. But never together. This is an important job, you know.

At 9.45am the Audi’s front seats start to get oddly edgy. Though we’re due to leave the grid at 9.55, we radio through to race control, asking: “Should we leave straight away?”

Schenken calmly reminds: “Race control to safety car, you are due to leave at 9.55am and the time is currently… 9.47am.”

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Eight minutes later we roar off – 135km/h up Mountain Straight, tyres squealing through Griffin’s Bend, twin turbos shooting us out of the Ford Cutting not much slower than a V8 Supercar. As we pass Reid, Sulman and McPhillamy Parks, the crowd bursts out an excited cheer. We exit the Dipper as Schenken pipes up: “The cars are leaving the grid.”

We enter the pits and I ask how many times the pace car went out last year. “Whatever you do, don’t call it a pace car,” says Crouch. “It’s a ‘safety’ car!” Yeah, but to quote Dr Julius Hibbert: “And hillbillies prefer to be called ‘sons of the soil’, but it’ll never happen.” Oh, and the 2002 answer is seven.

On lap 16 it’s our first foray. The aerial shot on Audi’s TV shows carnage at Skyline. As we roll, the TV cuts out, so we’re expecting to see a blocked track, cars on fire, inverted, and “oh, the humanity”. Naturally we’re all disappointed when we find nothing! A few skids marks, but nothing. Damn those professional race drivers, sorting themselves out.

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We revisit the track four more times on laps 31, 44, 65 and 75. More often it’s an out lap, a couple of rolling laps to allow the cars and track to be cleared and an in lap. On the whole it’s relatively easy work for the driver because the hot seat is really the passenger’s; it’s he who relays the information to and from race control and he who operates the lights. The driver just drives, and offers feedback on track conditions and grip. We’re even allowed the discretion of a sneaky, momentary 50km/h in pitlane, despite its 40km/h speed limit. Suppose a drive-through penalty for the safety car would be a sight.

As Murphy rolls over lap 79, we park in our bay and sit. And wait. And wait. Almost two hours pass and I start barracking for a crash, a rock, a crazed kilt-wearing invader, anything to relieve the boredom. Worse still, that lunchtime bottle of water is pressurising my bladder.

It’s lap 149, we’ve been dormant for almost half the race. I’ve procrastinated for the last 30 minutes, so I bolt out the door, yelling “pee break”, and start a 200-metre zig-zag through the punters. Exiting the loo, I hear a cheer from turn one. Bowe has landed in the sand trap at Hell Corner. Typical. I sprint and hear the Audi’s gruff idle as it comes into view. I get within three steps and Dane belts off. I’ve missed the bus.

Right then, as if on cue, Taylor J, watching on TV at home, sends me an SMS: “You could still win this!” Not on foot I can’t.

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So while the RS6 does two loops of an empty track, Bowe’s extracted and the safety car pits. I jump back in to watch the balance on TV as Murphy crosses the line for the 161st time and takes the chequer.

Our job is to follow the last car. We do a lap primarily to pick up the bad-driver reports from the flag marshals, but also (1) dodge the oncoming tow trucks and (2) try not to mow down any errant, tanked-up fans staggering onto the track, and enjoy the romantic allure of a hundred lounges on fire.

It’s a stop/start lap and the final, menial task for the safety car amid the drunken orders of (and I quote) “Light it up you shitboxes”. Thankfully the last comment I hear is while exiting Caltex Chase: “Audi rules.”

For 18 laps, it sure did.

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Leader of the Pack

Bathurst marked the Aussie road and track debut of Audi’s most powerful production car, the RS6. Part of the first pre-sold batch of 33 to lob, the 331kW twin-turbo 4.2 has electrifying throttle response and a 0-100km/h quicker than a Porsche 911 Turbo auto. It whips around its 310km/h speedo through a five-speed paddle-shift tiptronic.

Inside the 19-inch alloys is a whopper set of exclusive stoppers: eight-piston front calipers on 365mm composite discs, single-piston/335mm rotors on the rear. Much appreciated with its 1840kg. Audi’s Dynamic Ride Control (DRC) also makes its debut on the RS6, a tricky damping system that mechanically counteracts pitching and rolling. But for all its blistered guards, side skirts, subtle front and rear spoilers and crushing performance, its skin is still a bit bland. Based on looks, you don’t expect it to be quick. But it bloody well is!

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Light fantastic

Mechanically standard, the Audi RS6 safety car has minimal mods for its job. The stick-on AVESCO and Audi graphics and Bosch light bar are obvious, but inside it’s surprisingly standard.

There’s a two-way radio in the passenger footwell and speaker mounted on the dash to relay instructions from race control, a bank of five switches for lights (roof, front and rear strobe), plus a police-like message board mounted on the parcel shelf that will soon offer written instructions to following drivers. The board wasn’t working at Bathurst as CAMS was still confirming and standardising its instructions; the one time we waved cars by, it was done by the technical method of Dane opening his window and waving his arm!

Remus supplies a specific exhaust – if that’s what you call the deletion of mufflers and the two three-inch pipes with fancy Remus tips. The fact that the RS6 never exceeded 100km/h for the entire race proves high power is an indulgence rather than a necessity.

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Five things to know about the Bathurst safety car

• It's limited to 140km/h by the whistling of the roof lights
• There is no pay...
• Which partly explains why there's no full-time driver
• It chewed through a set of front tyres over the weekend
• The fastest it saw the entire race was 100km/h