Lowndes and Murphy putt it out
Two legends of Australasian motorsport have again gone headto-head over Mt Panorama – only this time it hasn’t been the famous Australian track, but a circuit of a different kind in Taranaki.
Australian Supercars driver Craig Lowndes has won the famous Bathurst 1000 race seven times, and Kiwi Greg Murphy has won it four times.
Their first win was in 1996 when they did it together, teaming up in a Holden Commodore to take out the big race over the notorious Mt Panorama circuit overlooking the New South Wales town of Bathurst.
This week the pair are in New Zealand to prepare for this weekend’s ITM Auckland SuperSprint at Pukekohe – Lowndes as a driver and Murphy as a TV commentator – and on Tuesday they flew to New Plymouth to visit the Hillsborough Holden Museum and shoot footage for the Supercars TV programme. A feature of the museum is a mini-putt golf course that pays homage to the Mt Panorama circuit, and it wasn’t long before the two drivers had their own golfing contest. For the record, the Aussie won.
‘‘Craig and I were team-mates for about three years,’’ Murphy recalled after their match. ‘‘We were both very fortunate that the Holden Racing Team took a bit of a punt on us, because we were both so young – when HRT took us on, I was only 23 and Craig 21.’’
Murphy retired from full-time racing in 2014, ending a career that also involved four Supercars wins at Pukekohe. This year is the last for Lowndes as a full-time driver. Even though the Australian again won the Bathurst event this year he has never won at Pukekohe in 38 attempts.