WITH the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 completed over the weekend we couldn’t help but keep the Surfers Paradise theme rolling a little longer and rewind to the 2009 event to find one of the more bizarre fines ever handed out to a Supercars driver.
Then a Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore pilot, now-Team 18 co-driver and commercial property guru Lee Holdsworth copped a $2000 suspended fine at that year’s round.
His crime?
Perhaps involvement in an on-track collision with another driver?
What about speeding in pit lane?
If you guessed, ‘wearing inappropriate clothing during driver introductions’ then you’d be correct!
We had to dive into the Stewards Reports of the period to recall this, however Holdsworth taped his driving suit to the front of his body to give the impression he was wearing it, before turning around to expose his boxer shorts.
Holdsy had his race suit and t-shirt on properly for the driver’s parade! Photo: an1images.com / Ross Gibb.
The driver introductions were shown on the big screen at the track, however not on the Channel 7 television broadcast of the event, known that year as the Nikon SuperGP.
“It’s very unfair,” he told Motorsport eNews at the time of the penalty.
“It’s almost like [V8 Supercars Australia] want us to be puppets.
“They keep saying they want controversy and publicity, but when we try they shut it down.
“It was just a bit of fun, and everyone thought it was fun … except them.”
V8SA media manager of the time, Cole Hitchcock, said that the fine wasn’t about censoring the drivers but making sure they understood the limits of what is acceptable.
“We’re more than happy for drivers to show their personalities,” he said, “but we have to be conscious of the image we are projecting to the wider audience.”
We’ve got no doubt that Holdsworth’s then-boss, the late Garry Rogers, would have loved his, er, cheek at the time …