If you were watching the “Grand Final” of the V8 Supercars yesterday, (actually they are just called “Supercars” these days) you could hardly have failed to miss the collision between Ryan Wood and Broc Feeney during the very first lap.
This effectively put the kibosh on Feeney winning the title for this year. Well, I suppose in reality two things went against him. The first was the change to the new format with a “finals” system as against what used to happen which was the driver who amassed the most points throughout the year’s events was the winner.
If this system had been retained – and I am not alone thinking this new system is bloody stupid – Feeney would have galloped it in, metaphorically speaking, with daylight between him and second.
And the second was the actual collision. Yes, whilst he recovered to finish, albeit 21st, due to a misfiring engine, the fact the incident should never have occurred makes that a bit of a moot point as who knows whether the collision caused some damage on top of the problem he had in earlier heats with a similar engine issue. Which he won with by the way.
Similar
Now, I bring this up here as the investigation into the prang reminds me very much of a similar situation at Wanneroo Park Raceway quite a few years back now in 1978. Coming out of the “bowl”, which at the time was out of sight of spectators, Torana A9X drivers Bob Morris and Wayne Negus came together, with the incident putting Morris out of the race.
He immediately blamed Wayne Negus for the incident and it went to a tribunal that lasted well into the night, with the no definitive result, much to Morris’ disgust.
Why was there no decision? The race was televised by the ABC and there was a camera at that point, but unlike today, that was the ONLY camera that had vision and we will never know why, but at the crucial moment, at the point of the incident, it failed.
This was actually my first BIG story as a photo-journalist as I started as a motor sport specialist. Touring Cars as they were called back then, and the ATCC – the Australian Touring Car Championship – had names like Brock, Moffat, Grice, Richards, Bond, Harvey and more, who were of course household names and heroes to many. But with Perth being a lifetime away from the Eastern States, very few sports journos bothered to come over and cover it. With the crash affecting the Championship, it became Big News and I was one of the very few actually there covering the race and later attended the tribunal.
Hundreds of Cameras
Current broadcasts use dozens if not hundreds of cameras depending on the meeting. Each car has at least 4 as I understand it – one inside the cabin, one forward facing, one rear facing and a “specialist” unit that may be in the wheel well, bolted to the side of the car, on the driver’s helmet, the roof of the car etc.
It may be of interest that the technology to do this, which started with a full shoulder mount broadcast type camera on a gimbal, installed where the passenger seat would be, was in a Toyota Celica driven by Peter Williamson. The tech behind it all was – as I understand it – a sort of joint venture between our very own ABC and Channel 7.
Anyway, all those cameras plus the trackside ones that caught the Wood / Feeney crash, including helicopters and I am guessing some drone footage, according to the officials, placed the blame fairly on Wood, and he was given a 15 second stop penalty in the pits – which in the overall scheme of things did nothing of course to help Feeney.
Of course, every Supercar fan has their own opinion on the situation with a pretty much 50-50 split as to who was wrong, but in the real world, the camera does not lie under these circumstances. And the tech behind them is very, very good indeed.
And, thank goodness, they worked!
Photo courtesy Ross Gibb Photography