There was no fairytale return to motor racing for New Zealand great Greg Murphy on Sunday, with Australians David Russell and Roger Lago winning the Hampton Downs 101.
Russell, who was Dale Wood’s co-driver in the endurance rounds in Supercars this year, had a superb second stint in the Lamborghini R-EX to take the lead on lap 97 from Graham Smythe and cruised home from there.
Smythe suffered a crash on the final lap, which moved John Martin and Duvashen Padayachee into second, with Nathan Morcom and Grant Denyer third.
Racetrack owner Tony Quinn and Murphy finished 10th and were the victims of unusual rules in the Australian GT Endurance Series, where cars aren’t allowed to make pit stops when the safety car is out and can’t double stack either.
Murphy was just about to bring the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in, for the first compulsory pit stop, when two cars were involved in an incident, which brought the safety car out.
A number of other cars had already pitted by then, but Murphy had to stay out and pit when the track was clear.
Later in the race, Quinn was spun around by a car clipping him from the back, putting them further behind.
“We got done by the safety car, so we weren’t able to pit,” lamented Murphy afterwards.
“There are some very complex rules around the pits and when you can and with safety cars.
“When the safety car happened they were already in, so they got to pit and we had to stay out, whereas a whole lot of other cars had already pitted.
“So we were already a whole lap down and Tony was innocent in that one (incident) and there was damage.
“It was actually a bit of a handful. The boys are quite used to it apparently, she uses up her rear tyres pretty bad. In the first stint I was thinking it was pretty racey, but then it started moving around a lot and we fell back.”
With 20 laps to go, all the cars had made their final pit stops and it was Smythe in the lead.
He and co-driver Peter Edwards benefitted from having to spend just 100 seconds when making their compulsory pitstops, in this handicap race which penalises the more experienced and professional drivers, who have to spend more time completing their stops.
As the laps ticked by, Russell was closing in on Smythe but with 10 laps left he was able to get right up behind him when the safety car was called on again, following Richard Moore breaking down on the track with gear problems.
With four laps to go, Smythe couldn’t cope with the pressure and made a mistake at a corner, letting Russell in for the victory.
The 44-year-old Murphy hung up his racing gloves in 2014 and began a new career working as part of the commentary team for Supercars.
He was persuaded to get back into it just for the Hampton Downs 10 and the next race in the series, at Highlands, Central Otago in a fortnight.
While Murphy enjoyed the experience, the competitiveness in him came out and he was disappointed that things didn’t work out as he hoped.
“You’ve got to do your thing. As usual, when things don’t go great, that’s car racing,” he said.
“It’s not a hip, hip hooray when things don’t go perfect.
“But that’s alright, I was just here to have fun and be a part of it and that’s what it was.”
