The day the Olympics came to Bathurst

The eyes of the sporting world are currently firmly on Paris and France for the Olympic Games over the next fortnight.

Inevitably, comparisons between the current Games and those of previous years, particularly the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, spring up this time every four years.

So what about the time a taste of the Olympics, specifically the Torch Relay, came to Bathurst?

It unfolded back in September 2000.

Holden was a major sponsor of the Olympics and indeed the Torch Relay, meaning plenty of its star drivers of the time carried the flame during its journey from Athens in Greece to Sydney.

The Olympic flame took a unique trip around Mount Panorama inside the Holden Commodore VT V8 Supercar race car of none other than Craig Lowndes on Saturday September 2, 2000.

With plenty of racing fans on hand, Peter Brock covered his relay leg and handed the flame to Lowndes, with the flame placed in a specially constructed canister inside the car.

Given the strict rules surrounding sponsorship and official partners holding exclusive rights and signage of Olympics events, of which the Torch Relay was included, all of the car’s regular sponsors had to have their stickers removed with only Holden and HSV remaining in place for the special lap of Bathurst.

The car he was driving was most one of the HRT’s race cars of the period, one he’d raced the previous month at Calder.

“I remember when we were talking about being part of it,” Lowndes recalled to V8 Sleuth in its ‘HRT The Cars’ history book released in 2017.

“They had to make up a proper holder in the car and a safe canister. They were worried about the transfer of flame and it perhaps going out! It was in the passenger’s side and it was like an old gas lantern.

“It was an encased flame, not naked like the baton was. I think they left the baton lit in case it went out while I was going around the circuit.”

The good news was that the flame didn’t go out, the lap was completed without worry and the Olympics were a raging success.

Amazing to think this unique lap of Bathurst occurred nearly a quarter of a century ago!