Howard gets a Bathurst hot lap - Auto Action

Wow! That was the first reaction from Supercars CEO Shane Howard as he stepped from Mark Winterbottom’s Chevy Camaro this morning.

He had just run two laps in the passenger seat in a very rare passenger ride.

Passengers are basically banned from Supercars so, although there are hot laps for paying customers and VIP guests, they are done in road cars. Not for the CEO of Supercars.

He jumped in beside ‘Frosty’ for two laps in the very car that Winterbottom will drive in The Great Race.

And the laps were quick. Very quick.

Proof? Winterbottom went straight into a debrief with his engineer to discuss how the car was performing, even with the extra ballast on the left-hand side.

For background, Howard is not a total rookie at Bathurst.

When he was much younger, he raced as the ’swinger’ on a motorcycle sidecar outfit at Mount Panorama.

But he said the Camaro experience was radically different.

“Unbelievable. Unbelievable,” Howard told Auto Action.

“How they do that with 25 other cars around then, I don’t know.”

When did he realise what was happening?

“When we took off out of pitlane. He was warming up the tires and I was like ‘Holy shit, holy shit’.

“The braking. Going in so deep. And the speed over the top.

“When you watch it on TV you cannot comprehend something like that. It’s just mind blowing.

“Holy smoke. Incredible.”

Image: Paul Gover

2024 Bathurst 1000

Practice 1: 1: Matt Payne 2:07.2941 2: Cameron Waters +0.0366 3: Will Brown +0.0373

Practice 2: 1: J. Whincup 2:07.4788 2: C. Murray +0.0370 3: J. Ojeda +0.1860

Practice 3: 1: B. Feeney 2:06.7842 2: T. Randle +0.0614 3: J. Courtney +0.0700

Practice 4: 1: B. Kostecki 2:06.1820 2: C. Waters +0.1636 3: B. Feeney +0.3455

Qualifying: 1: M. Payne 2:05.6452 2: C. Waters +0.0060 3: B. Feeney +0.0113

Practice 5: Sat 10.05-11.05 (co drivers)

Practice 6: Sat 13.05-14.05 (all drivers)

Top 10 Shootout: Sat 17.05

Warm up: Sun 8.15-8.35

Bathurst 1000: Sun 11.30 (161 laps)

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