Counting down to the Bathurst 1000 next weekend, there are many iconic TV moments, but in modern times, similarly famous ones on YouTube. Greg Murphy's qualifying lap is one obvious one.
Back in February 2005, YouTube launched, and in October that same year, the Bathurst 1000 hosted a support race for the Lotus Trophy Series, a one-make, two-model category, with (Class A) 141kW Exiges and 89kW Elises (Class B).
Weather often intervenes at Bathurst, and rainfall just before Saturday morning's race 2 reverse-grid race would prove pivotal. From 14th on the grid, the driver of a Class B Elise passes four cars by turn one, despite being squeezed close to the wall and having the driver's window folded forwards.
Over the next 4km, a magical lap would reveal gaps to go for, some made a little more forcefully than others, with no more contact than a light bump coming out of the Cutting.
At the top of the mountain, a dry line would make passing tricky, with most of the front-running cars very cautious, but cutting a line through the traffic, the red camera cars passes three cars going over Skyline, through the Dipper, and then rounding up the final car coming onto Conrod Straight to claim the lead - seconds before yellow flags came out for an incident behind, and then a safety car.
The POV video was recorded on MiniDV handicam - a potato by today's standards - predating GoPros by almost five years. The 2 min clip was uploaded to YouTube but copyright software allowed others to replicate and upload their own copies to YouTube. That mean the actual view count is fractured, but by 2020, the video racked up combined views of more than 10 million. The original post has around a quarter-million views, while this Spanish post of the clip, for example, has close to 4 million alone. There's even the full TV race coverage here.
It's an example of corner speed, as the red camera car was actually a little down in power, getting passed in a straight line. Top speed was a little over 200km/h.
So popular was the video that a New York kids' amusement ride company paid $10k for the rights to 2 mins of footage to use in one of their fibreglass ride cars at supermarkets. Oddly, the ride-footage stops randomly just after The Esses due to time limitations of the ride.
The reason there's so much known detail is because the footage was produced and driven by our own DRIVEN Car Guide editor Dean Evans, who paid $10k - coincidentally - to lease and run the Elise at the 2005 Bathurst event.
The popular clip is just 2 mins duration, but the full race was posted later on (above) with the events that happened after the safety car period, including the camera car trying to compete but being convincingly passed by the much faster Class A Exiges (around 40km/h faster down Conrod Straight, doing 240km/h), but having some great battles with the faster cars, and ultimately finishing 11th outright, and first in Class B by 14 seconds. The race results still exist here.
In the Bathurst 1000 event the following day, Marcos Ambrose would have his famous crash with Greg Murphy, Mark Skaife would go on to win, but the YouTube clip of a Lotus going from last to first continues to remain an underground cult classic.
