One of the most well-known pieces of footage from the Bathurst race in Australia is when Darrell Waltrip got to ride along in the passenger seat for a lap of Mount Panorama in Jason Bright’s Holden back in 2011. You can love or hate DW’s campy styling when it comes to his work on the mic, but make no mistake that the man is solid as a rock behind the wheel of a race car…his NASCAR stats back that up. Now, in the passenger seat of a V8 SuperCar…that was a whole ‘nother story altogether, with Waltrip unabashedly losing his ever-lovin’ mind as Bright gave him the proper grand tour of the place. There are trade-offs between a NASCAR stocker and a V8 SuperCar, but compared to left turns and aerodynamic theory put into practice, slamming a car through blind corners on the side of a mountain has to be a hell of a lot more exciting.
Now, that was a NASCAR legend, someone who is used to speed. The man you see in the right-side seat of Brad Jones’ Audi A4 here is Murray Walker. Don’t recognize the name? This man is one of Britain’s best-known racing commentary voices….he’s worked alongside James Hunt for Formula 1, he’s the voice heard during the mental 1990s British Touring Car Championship. This is the guy who re-interpreted John Cleland’s middle finger to Steve Soper, caught on-screen during a Saturday broadcast on BBC, as ” ‘I’m going for first!’, says John Cleland!” on the fly so that audiences with young children could avoid explaining the details of tempers in racing. In 1997, Walker was 73 years young and still as sharp as a razor’s edge, and was still announcing in a full-time position. And compared to Waltrip, Walker seems about as composed as you can possibly get. That, or he was just bracing for the end…kind of hard to tell on these Bathurst ride-alongs, really…
A Captain in the British Army during WWII as a tank commander in a Sherman tank. That was a walk in the park for him.
I agree phitter67.