GREG Murphy has opened up on the memories which make his Bathurst 24 Hour-winning Holden Monaro so special to him.
The 51-year-old will again steer the car at this month’s Historic GP at Taupō International Motorsport Park.
There, Murphy will drive the Garry Rogers Motorsport-built car he, Peter Brock, Jason Bright and Todd Kelly shared in conquering the second and final edition of Mount Panorama’s 24 Hour in 2003.
Murphy previously was reunited with the Monaro, now owned by Peter Lucas, at the 2020 Phillip Island Classic.
Murphy reflected on the Monaro and that Bathurst victory in the most recent edition of the Castrol Motorsport News Podcast.
“It was just such a crazy event,” the Kiwi star told host Will Dale.
“When you think back and go ‘we’re going to do 24 Hour races at Bathurst’, I mean, who wouldn’t want to be involved in that, for a start?”
Adding to the challenge was that Murphy had to fend off the pole-sitting sister GRM Monaro of Garth Tander (alongside Steven Richards, Cameron McConville and Nathan Pretty) in the closing stages.
“To do 24 hours at that place is just nuts and then to have the last eight minutes and have Garry Rogers come on the radio and tell us that we were free to race for the last eight minutes, was something that was hard to comprehend,” Murphy recalled.
“I did feel every single second of pressure for the remaining time of that race from GT, but as we know he’s an absolute pro, so he was probably the right bloke to have behind me at the time.
“It was crazy, there was yellow flags and there was cars stopped and there was people crashing.
“It was chaos, but definitely a great memory so this car means a lot to me and I’m sure it will mean a lot to the New Zealand fans having it here in New Zealand for a little bit.”
The Historic GP at Taupō will run across January 19-21.
V8 Sleuth is the official media partner for the event, which will be broadcast live on Sky Sport in New Zealand and Fox Sports in Australia.
The Taupō Historic GP is the second round of the Super Sprint MotorSport NZ Championship and will host the opening round of the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship (CTFROC) as part of a unique modern/historic flavoured race meeting.
The event is also a unique celebration of Trans-Tasman Holden history and will feature a ‘Holden All-Comers’ race open to all Holden race cars with a homologated roll cage and logbook.
Also set to appear are Historic Touring Cars NZ, Historic Sports Sedans and All-Comers, Historic Saloons, Sports and GTs, F5000, Formula Open NZ and Formula Junior/Formula 3/Historic Formula Ford.
