It's been six years since Kiwi Greg Murphy hung up his 'full-time' Virgin Australia Supercars Championship helmet, and four years since he last appeared in the series as a gun-for-hire co-driver. But that hasn't stopped him from making an appearance at the last three Friday co-driver practice sessions at the Winton SuperSprint.
The former Bathurst champion made a cameo with Erebus Motorsport in 2016, behind the wheel of David Reynolds' Holden VF Commodore. He then repeated the feat in 2017, taking over the controls of Alex Rullo's LD Motorsport Commodore.
And he'll do it again later today, with Tekno Autosport's Jonathon Webb giving the four-time champion the green light to baby-sit the ZB Commodore usually driven by Jack le Brocq.
“I’ve demanded excess brand new soft tyres so I can have a crack at the lap record,” he joked, while speaking to supercars.com.
“What’s the point of going out there if you don’t have a goal?"
Since vacating the sport at the end of 2014, Murphy has driven in the NZ SuperTourers and the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship. He's still a regular in the latter, where he competes in an AP4 Holden Barina.
“It’ll be nice to get in and have a go, but I’m so out of practice, obviously.”
“My feedback I don’t think is that relevant any more, to be honest, the cars are evolving so much, but it’ll allow the car to have a run before Jack Le Brocq gets in.
“The last time I drove was 12 months ago here in the rain in Alex Rullo’s car, and now it’s a ZB. The chassis is the same obviously, but I didn’t really learn a lot last year in the wet and I don’t expect another half-hour will give too much useful information.”
In the midst of his rookie Supercars season, Le Brocq has been impressive. Most notably, he claimed a fifth-place finish at the closing race at Symmons Plains. It's the best of three top-10 results the former Super2 driver has had this season, and he currently sits 18th in the points (the leading rookie).
The session kicks off at 12.05pm NZST, with another two subsequent Supercars sessions today scheduled for 2.00pm and 4.35pm respectively.