Bleat, Bleat, Bleat! Greg Murphy says he’s over the lap one incident at Bathurst, where he and Craig Lowndes touched wheels coming off the Hump at the end of Mountain Straight. He says that no absolutes exist at Bathurst, that the #3 Sprint Gas Commodore might and might not have won, despite the touch at 200 kph which bent a steering arm. Yet he claims he was robbed by the eventual race-winning car-driver combination. Race officials didn’t see it that way, and frankly, reviewing action several times, I can’t see anything in it either.
Looking carefully at the incident several times, it’s clear that Lowndes, who was behind Murphy on the climb up the straight, found room on the outside of the track coming over the Hump. He took that room, but found an unsettled car in his hands on coming off the top. The car drifted – not half a track width as the Murphy Whinge article states – less than a metre in toward the middle of the track due to camber at that point. At speed, it was clarly a racing incident, and one Murphy would be only to happy to pass off as such, were the roles reversed.
This weekend’s Round 11 at Surfers Paradise will be interesting to watch, from the perspective of Murphy-on-Lowndes. While he claims he’s over the matter, it’s patently clear, Greg Murphy is holding a grudge. Such things cloud judgement, and while neither he nor Jason Richards are in the championship hunt, neither can afford to hold grudges when good showings are vital for sponsorship dollars at this stage in a season. I always thought Murphy was a better competitor than this. Clearly, I’m wrong.