OPINION: Hey, Craig, father time is calling . . .
Has the time come for someone to stick their head up out of the trenches and state the bleeding obvious?
Let me be the stupid bastard who becomes a national villain by saying out-loud what many others are thinking – Craig Lowndes, your time has come.
After decades of driving brilliance, fan favouritism and a cheery demeanour in any situation, Father Time has stamped your card and you’ve reached your use-by date.
Of course this may be stamped in a place you can’t readily see, so get the missus to give you the once-over in case you have any doubts.
Somewhere she’ll likely find the date 02-02-2025.
Early in the Bathurst 12-Hour you got the tap that all racing drivers fear.
For the likes of Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez in Formula One, it was a tap on the shoulder.
For you it was a tap of a different kind - a tap on the wall.
Only 90 minutes into a 12 hour epic, Lowndes clipped the inside wall over Skyline in his superbly-prepared Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT3 and basically it was game over.
"Driver error, which is probably a bit of a rarity," admitted Lowndes after returning to pit lane.
A bit of a rarity? How about just plain dumb, or stupid, or a mistake a rookie wouldn’t and shouldn’t make?
"I went over Skyline, and I was chasing the Lamborghini and of course with all the Bronze (drivers) and other people going out there it was a bit of carnage," said Lowndes.
"I went over Skyline, went through the left, and as I was about to tip right into The Dipper I just clipped that right wall, and it sort of spat me across, and I thought I'd saved it, but then it just hit the left rear.
"That's what has done the damage, the left rear is the damaged one. I was trying to limp it home, but I think it's probably pulled the driveshaft out of that left side and it's lost drive."
"It was my mistake, and this place can bite, and we faced it today."
Yes, Mt Panorama can bite, especially when, at 50 years of age, the supernatural reflexes that once made you the best in the business just ain’t what they used to be.
The split-second judgement needed in a GT3 missile is a little off? Hey Craig, you can’t be Australian motor racing’s Peter Pan forever.
While one should never rely on American music legend Kenny Rogers for career advice, I can’t help but think that his legendary song The Gambler should be playing on repeat in the Lowndes household from now on.
“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run,” sang good ole Kenny. Wise words indeed.
It’s about at this stage that I now fully expect to be confronted by with a front yard packed with crazed villagers, angrily waving burning torches and pitchforks while chanting vile and insulting things.
Then again, that’s a bit old school isn't it? Maybe it will be a social media barrage of hate-filled messages, demeaning memes and soul destroying hashtag barbs that will make me cower in disgrace and fear for daring to state the f-ing obvious.
Of course, given that I’m not on socials – mainly because I don’t give a shit about anyone’s opinion but my own – this will, as they say in cricket, go straight through to the keeper.
Lowndes has collected an enormous amount of silverware during his storied career, but silver has a habit of tarnishing with age and the longer you leave it, the worse the tarnishing becomes.
This surprisingly insightful metaphor is the warning that Lowndes should heed and not get trapped in hubris rather than bowing out with classy humility.
Back in 1996 I covered Lowndes’ first Bathurst victory (with Greg Murphy) for the Holden Racing Team when the young phenom, mentored by the legendary Peter Brock, blew the old boys away.
At just 22 years old but looking much younger, it was on that day that Lowndes served notice that with Brock on his way out, Australian motor racing had a readily made, if still somewhat rough around the edges, successor to 'The Great One'.
"Holden sent a boy to do a man’s job at Bathurst yesterday. And boy, didn’t he do it!", I wrote in a front-page story for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Since then he hasn’t let anyone down. Over the years his career reads like something a school kid would write as a wish list of sporting achievements and, after Brock called it a day as a full-time driver at the end of ‘97, it was Lowndes who stepped up to become the fan favourite.
Brock had molded Lowndes into his own image, if you will. Sort of a mini-me.
Like Brock, Lowndes would sign autographs for as long as anyone remained in the queue, chat happily with anyone and everyone, was a media darling and just an all-round good bloke.
Which is probably why, in 2001, Ford poached him from Holden and made him the first $1 million a year driver in Australian tin-top racing. Not all the fans from the Holden red went with him to the Ford blue, but enough did to make the company pretty smugly happy about its investment.
In the years since, Lowndes has been the benchmark. Well, at least until he retired from a full-time driving career back in 2018.
Cop this as a resume: seven Bathurst 1000 crowns, three Australian Touring Car Championships, two Bathurst 12 Hour victories, 110 Supercar victories from 647 races, 266 visits to the podium and 42 pole positions.
Oh, and he copped a gong when he was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) and has been inducted into the Australian Motor Sport Hall of Fame.
In all these years at the top of his game, Lowndes has not only been a fan favourite, but he’s drawn in personal sponsors with both his on-track success and personal charisma.
Now those side deals, combined with his hefty pay packet from a driver’s contract with Triple Eight, have probably helped make him a pretty wealthy individual. And the money sure won’t stop even if he stops driving, for he remains the most recognisable face of Supercar racing in Australia.
But, as we’ve seen in his last couple of outings in the Triple Eight wildcard entry at Bathurst where he’s been tapped to mentor young up and coming drivers, Lowndes is getting older and, sadly, slower.
It happens to the best of them. Look at Brock in his last two Bathurst attempts after his first 'retirement'. It was kinda sad, to be honest, and Lowndes should be aware that history has a nasty habit of repeating itself.
Of course, I’d be shocked if Lowndes would take any notice of my advice to call it a day when he's still doing ok but nowhere near the driver he once was.
The bloke once known as 'The Kid' may even choose to ignore the sage advice of Kenny Rogers.
But mate, you got 'the tap' at Bathurst and that should make you ponder.
However, right about now I’ve got to get all those angry people off my front lawn.
Those flaming torches are killing the azaleas. Bastards . . .
