FOR the second successive Supercars enduro, Olympic gold medallist Kieren Perkins has popped up in the Grove Racing garage.
Once a 1500m freestyle swimming superstar, winning that discipline at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games, Perkins specialised in banking before taking up the position of Australian Sports Commission CEO in March last year.
He is understood to have been playing an unofficial at-event consulting role of sorts for Groves, although he downplayed that notion when approached by V8 Sleuth.
“I know (team principal) Dave Cauchi and he’s been good enough to look after me,” said Perkins.
“I’ve been a massive fan (of motorsport/Supercars). I unfortunately won’t be here for the full weekend but I will not miss a minute of the telecast and will drive my wife insane with the sound of V8s rolling around for 12 hours.
“I’m just loving the opportunity to come and see how they operate and see the team dynamic.
“Because at the end of the day, like all sports, people who don’t really watch or understand assume it’s all about just the driver and the car, but you don’t get one of these things around this incredible track 161 times in one piece without an entire team of people working.
“So I just love watching them do their thing. I’m very grateful and fortunate that I can get access and I can see what they do.”
It was Perkins’ second Bathurst 1000 appearance, having been grand marshal at the 1994 Great Race.
“I got introduced to him by a mate of mine who I used to work with in banking,” he explained of his Cauchi connection.
“Before my current gig, I spent 20 years in banking and one of the guys that I worked with there is a motorsport nut and actually raced himself. He introduced us a couple of years ago now.”
Grove Racing enjoyed a promising Thursday at Mount Panorama, finishing second in both Practice 1 and Practice 2 courtesy of Matt Payne and Garth Tander respectively.
