The goal of anyone who plays a sport, is to win. The reason why we keep on coming back is because there is always still everything to play for and forever to play it in. Invariably with sport adding to the forever bank of statistics, someone has to be the best. I do not buy the proposition that you can not compare different sports people across different eras because of course you can. That's literally what statistics allow you to do. Statistics are the objective data that does not care about a subjective kosmos.
It was Allan Moffat who said that "Winning the championship only allows you to write '1' on the door. Winning Bathurst allows you to write your name into immortality." The weird thing is that he is still right. Nobody really cares who won the Australian Touring Car Championship. Both Glenn Seton and Marcus Ambrose won the championship twice and Bathurst, which is the thing that everyone wants to win, eluded them.
Nominally, the Bathurst 1000 is worth 4/7ths of a championship in terms of glory and its little brother the Sandown 500, is worth half of that (2/7ths). Knowing this, we can evaluate all of the greats in Touring Car history pretty easily. Peter Brock's 3 championships are worthy but winning Sandown 9 times including 7 in a row, and winning Bathurst 9 times is the stuff of legend.
Peter Brock:
3 championships = 3 x 1 = 3
Sandown 9 times = 9 x 2/7 = 18/7
Bathurst 9 times = 9 x 4/7 = 36/7
3 + 18/7 + 36/7 = 10 5/7 = 10.714
The story of the 2023 Sandown 500, has meant that this weekend just been, for only the second time in my lifetime, the statistical title of the Greatest Of All Time in Australian Touring Car history, changed hands.
Broc Feeney in the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro, held off Brodie Kostecki who got as close as 0.2 seconds in the closing stages, to win victory in the Sandown 500 along with co-driver Jamie Whincup.
Whincup as the Triple Eight Engineering Team Principal, which means that he is the boss, drove into the lead twice in the opening period of the race, before handing the car over to Feeney in a very respectable 3rd place on lap 54.
When Cameron Hill had a steering issue and beached his Camaro at Turn 9, Feeney's almost 5 second lead was wiped out because of the Safety Car, and even though Kostecki attacked furiously, the clock was ticking away and as 17:53 ticked over, Kostecki would finish second; after only 158 of 161 laps were completed because of time and curfew.
Feeney made the win look tense but in control. As he was always under attack, he had no time to relax and the fact that he brought the car home without having to take the lead back once he got it, shows that his defence was excellent.
It was this Sandown 500, which did just enough to tilt the top of the tables so that Jamie Whincup now stands alone as the Greatest Of All Time in Australian Touring Car history.
Jamie Whincup:
3 championships = 7 x 1 = 7
Sandown 9 times = 6 x 2/7 = 12/7
Bathurst 9 times = 4 x 4/7 = 16/7
7 + 12/7 + 16/7 = 11.000
At this point, Whincup has the most Australian Touring Car Championship titles (7), the most Australian Touring Car Championship race wins (123). His seventh championship included Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen; which merely served to prove that Whincup was not just a generational talent but very much a contender for the greatest of all-time. Except now, we've got the statistics to prove it.
Jamie Whincup is the GOAT. Story. End of. Proven. Statistically.
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