That led to a year working alongside movers and
shakers in NZ’s Formula Ford scene in 1993. Then fol-
lowed what he says was the big gamble of his career,
crossing the ditch to take a punt at the first round of
the 1994 Australian Driver’s Championship at Eastern
Creek.
“It was a pretty scary decision,” says Murphy. “My
Dad and I had $12,000 between us – that was every-
thing we had! – and we put it on black, rented a Ralt
RT21 and turned up at Eastern Creek.“As it happened it was the first round of the new
Super Touring championship. We were a support cat-
egory and some decisions just turn out to have bigger
results than you think. I won the two races and a guy
named Peter Addison walked into our garage.”
Addison was part of the team running the new
Australian Super Touring series. He’d seen Murphy’s
exploits and was impressed. Would he be keen to have
a steer of a Toyota Carina in the next round of Super
Touring?
And, just like that, Murphy’s Australian touring-car
career was out of the gates. After a promising run in the
Campbell Little-run Carina in 1994 he bagged a seat in
the factory Audi outfit, Brad Jones Racing, for 1995.
The gamble he’d made just 12 months earlier had paid
off spectacularly.
“Here I was, 22 years old, turning up to be a factory
driver with Audi and getting paid for the first time,”
says Murphy.
“I’m driving around Sydney in an Audi company car
and racing on the weekends. Just living the dream.
“If we hadn’t have done our homework and spent a
day and half at the track testing and making sure every-
thing was right... if I hadn’t been able to put it on pole,
or if we’d had problems with the car or a DNF, and if we
hadn’t won those two races... if all those things hadn’t
played out positively, I don’t know what would have
happened.
“If it wasn’t for Peter Addison walking into our garage
and saying, ‘Do you want to drive this car in a few weeks
time?’ my whole career might have gone a completely
different way.”ABOVE: The star-studded
Holden Racing Team
line-up.
BELOW: “Here I was with a
HRT car and Peter Brock as
my teammate, and it was my
car, with just my name on
the door.”