FORD XR8 SPRINT v HOLDEN SS-V REDLINE
@wheelsaustralia 79
Back in pitlane, Skaife is energised,
bounding from conversation to
conversation and topic to topic. He is
interested in every step of every process
that is going on today. He’d launched from
the limo when he’d arrived, shaking hands
in that short-arm jab manner of his that
always leaves you wondering if he’s saying
hello or about to deliver a shirt-front.
Either is possible. He’s organised and
organising as always. He’s in good form,
in a good space.
Ingall is also upbeat. He’s the happy,
knockabout bloke he’s always been at his
best. Getting out of the shitboxes he raced
at the tail-end of his career has done him
the world of good. Nowadays, he drives in
the enduros for good teams. This year he
will share a Nissan Altima with Rick Kelly.
There’s a real chance of a Bathurst podium.
Skaife calls Ingall ‘Boof’ and rags him
constantly; it’s almost manic how hard he
works him. Ingall gives him plenty back,
but you can see even he finds Skaife’s
relentlessness tiring. Every now and then
he just runs out of patience and rejoinders.
“Fuck off, Skaife!”
Skaife just giggles. “Come on, Boof,
don’t be like that.”
As Ingall prepares to go for his run,
Skaife is at the window, still working
him over. “You can get in here without
braking,” he says waving at Turn One.
Then Ingall forgets to release the park
brake. He laughs at himself before Skaife
has a chance to.
“Good luck, brother. Good luck. Good
luck, mate.” Skaife is still going. Christ, I
wish he’d shut up, and I’m not even driving.
Ingall gives it a bootfull as he exits
pitlane to check that the traction control
is off. The Falcon wheelspins violently
sideways. “Yep, it’s off,” he laughs.
The spin comes only seconds later,
literally the first time he applies power
with any lateral force working on the
car. The rear end skates around like he’s
driving on ball bearings.
He never again gyrates (to use one of
Skaife’s favourite terms) but does spend a
lot of his two flying laps sideways on the
track or running off it, including at the exit
of the scrotum-tighteningly fast Turn One
at more than 150km/h. And he doesn’t lift.
Russell is now 52 but he still has the same
unbelievable commitment that marked his
racing, be it in Australia or overseas.
“There’s oversteer on the way in,
oversteer in the middle and oversteer
on the way out!” Ingall yells through his
helmet. By now the Falcon’s limits have
long been exceeded, but he is determined
to press on.
Clearly, his skills are much higher than
the car’s. He catches slides time and again,
clatters over kerbs, hammers the brakes,jiggles the gears. It won’t turn in and
it won’t stay straight on exit. It’s like a
pendulum swinging around its axis.
“That is the most oversteering car other
than a Sprintcar I have ever driven... Holy
Jesus!” he gasps as we retreat to pitlane.
“I spent more time on the grass than the
road.” By now he’s laughing.
But there was no revelry back in 2003.
Then, these guys were the best of enemies.
Ingall was big news. ‘The Enforcer’, so
named for his ruthless driving style, had
been required to wait until 12.01am on
New Year’s Day to officially confirm he had
left the employ of Holden legend Larry
Perkins, with whom he’d won the 1995
and 1997 Bathurst 1000s, to drive the new
Ford BA Falcon for leading Blue Oval team
Stone Brothers Racing, alongside emerging
young Tasmanian Marcos Ambrose. The
move would pay off with the 2005 V8
Supercars championship.
Skaife started 2003 as the category’s
most powerful, influential and successful
driver. He had won three consecutive
championships, and the Bathurst 1000 in
2001 and 2002. He had just signed a new
five-year deal with the category’s pre-
eminent team and was the face of Holden
in advertising.
But then HRT owner Tom Walkinshaw’s
TWR group was dragged down by its
Arrows F1 debts and the team faced
closure. Because manufacturers could notSkaife hasn’t had a proper
‘speed’ at a race track for ages,
but you wouldn’t know it