FOUR-TIME Bathurst 1000 winner Greg Murphy is heavily identified by the 51 racing number he carried for the majority of his V8 Supercar racing career.

However, for a day back in early 2003, he made a switch to running the #46 on the side of his Kmart Racing Team Commodore VX at a test day at Winton.

The number change led to the loophole that allowed it to be closed soon after.

Murphy was at the helm of the same car he’d raced the previous season (as car #51) and would start 2003 with, however the team taped over his name on the rear passenger window and taped a printed ‘46’ over the regular 51 on the front doors.

At the time the KRT was entered in V8 Supercars under John Faulkner Racing’s two-car franchise and Murphy ran on tyres previously marked and used by JFR.

PODCAST: Listen to John Faulkner on the V8 Sleuth Podcast

The loophole allowed the Kmart team to test without losing one of its own eight allocated test days for the year.

The move caused consternation among rival teams at the test but, under testing rules, KRT did not need to use one of its allocated test days for the test.

As Ray Robins, who was responsible for overseeing testing guidelines in V8 Supercars, told Motorsport News at the time of the test and conventions of the period: “I check the number on the car and the number on the tyres. If they match, that’s okay,” he said.

Also present at the same test were the Holden Racing Team’s Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly in new-shape VY Commodores, Perkins Engineering’s Steve Richards and Paul Dumbrell in Castrol VX Commodores and Brad Jones Racing’s Brad Jones and John Bowe in two new OzEmail BA Falcons.

The Kmart team went on to win that year’s Bob Jane T-Marts Bathurst 1000 with Murphy and Rick Kelly, the same weekend as the Kiwi’s famous ‘Lap of the Gods’ pole position lap.

That Bathurst-winning #51 VY Commodore is the cover car of V8 Sleuth Magazine Issue 4, available here now as a back issue in the V8 Sleuth Superstore.

A feature on John Faulkner also features in the same issue of the magazine, with a particular focus on his time in V8 Supercars and the franchise shuffles and politics of the period.

And what of the #46?

Used by Faulkner exclusively from JFR’s arrival in V8 touring car racing in 1996 through to end of 2002, the race number hasn’t made an appearance in Supercars Championship racing since the 2003 Bathurst 1000.

On that occasion it was on the side of a Faulkner-run Holden Young Lions Commodore VX driven by the late Dale Brede and West Aussie Tony Ricciardello.