The Return of The King


Murphy's achievements were overshadowed over the weekend by a number of unusual crashes. In race two Brad Jones Falcon ended up off its wheels parked against a tyre barrier after a spectacular departure from the track. This team has been involved in some spectacular incidents in recent years, the most recent in the 2004 Bathurst 1000. What made this one intriguing was the involvement of a Repco Valvoline Commodore driven by on Andrew Jones. Yes they are related, Andrew is Brad's nephew and son of BJR team manager and part owner Kim. Nothing like keeping it al in the family.

Next crazy incident saw Todd Kelly arrive at the back of the pack behind the safety car and realised he was going far too fast an despite some desperate braking and evasive manoeuvres he did enough damage to his own car to end his weekend. "Garth and all the guys in front were pressing on - if you slow down you lose pit position and all the cars are flying out of pit lane so the whole field was pressing on and everybody just caught up to each other at the end of the back straight. I just came around the kink and they were all there." explained Todd Kelly.

The final outstanding incident came in race three when a few spots of rain made the track greasy. On the fast main straight, that is really a sweeper, David Besnard hesitated to stay clear of Jamie Whincup who had slid onto the grass. Now comes the controversial bit as Castrol-Perkins driver Paul Dumbrell saw an opportunity and went down the inside of Besnard's Wright Patton Shakespeare Falcon. The only problem was that Besnard seemed to move over to give the car in trouble a bit more space. This pushed Dumbrell onto the grass and Dumbrell lost control of his Commodore and spun into Besnard giving both drivers a wild ride and that saw the rear end of the WPS Ford ripped off. Opinions varied but the stewards ended up blaming Dumbrell and as well as a fine he got docked 75 championship points.

The race had been red flagged while the carnage was cleared from the track and at the restart neither of the 888 Racing Falcons would start. The crew managed to push start Ellery's machine so he could be classified as a finisher and earn championship points but team mate Lowndes Ford

The copyright of the article The Return of The King in V8 Supercar Racing is owned by Philip Northeast. Permission to republish The Return of The King in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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