THROWBACK: Murphy’s 'Lap of the Gods' at Bathurst

Here's the thing about Greg Murphy's pole lap at Bathurst in 2003. It has since been beaten on the stopwatch, yet no one really remembers the lap that beat it.

The early 2000s were good years for what was then the V8 Supercar championship. The entire series was conceived to tap into the long-standing Holden versus Ford rivalry that had defined Australian touring car racing for decades, and it absolutely succeeded. Manufacturer tribalism was as strong as ever among fans, and badge alliances overrode all others.

Case in point: Greg Murphy himself. Murphy is a New Zealander, and in virtually any other sporting environment, there's nothing an Australian likes more than seeing a Kiwi lose. (There's one possible exception – Australians also really enjoy seeing England lose). But to V8 Supercar fans, that didn't matter. Holden or Ford. That was everything.

The cars were also cool: big, sloppy, piles of bodyroll with lots of power, no downforce, and tires that had the tiniest possible operating window. And the series was competitive. At places like Symmons Plains, you'd routinely see 20 cars covered by 1.0s in qualifying.

Murphy's 2003 Bathurst weekend began rather incongruously with his posing for photos in a portaloo; a throwback to the previous year's race when he'd earned an unprecedented five-minute penalty for exiting the pits while his car was still being refueled. Enraged, he climbed out of his car and locked himself in a toilet. Good times.

But then everyone got down to business. In the Top 10 Shootout that decides pole, most drivers had posted times in the 2m08.4s range, until veteran Jim Richards reeled off a 2m.08.1466s in the HRT Holden Commodore. That was 0.3s quicker than anyone... except John Bowe, whose 2m07.9556s in the BJR Ford Falcon from earlier in the session looked untouchable.

Then came Murphy. Already a two-time Bathurst winner at that point, his No.51 Kmart Racing Commodore had been fast all weekend, topping the first two practice sessions as well as the 50-minute opening qualifying session. He'd been one of three drivers to duck into the 2m07.9s range on Friday, and his confidence going into Saturday's Shootout was high.

Nevertheless, when he arrived at the top of Mt. Panorama with a split time 0.4s better than Bowe's – on a day when most drivers were chasing thousandths of a second – there were audible gasps across the paddock. Exiting Forrest's Elbow, he was 0.7s up on Bowe's lap. Just after the 2m mark on the video (found below), the producers switch to the BJR garage just in time to catch Bowe himself shaking his head in disbelief.

By the time Murphy crossed the start/finish line, the entire paddock was united in a shared understanding that we'd witnessed something special. Murphy's pole time of 2m06.859s was a full 1.0s quicker than Bowe had gone, and the first time anyone had ever navigated a V8 Supercar around Australia's most fearsome track in under 2m07s. When Murphy returned to pit road, rival teams were waiting to greet him with a standing ovation.

Murphy went on earn his third Bathurst win that weekend along with co-driver Rick Kelly, and added a fourth in 2004. But in the days that followed, there was as much focus on that qualifying lap as there was on the race itself. The magazine I worked for at the time got hold of Murphy's data from that lap and broke it all down with Murphy and engineer Erik Pender. (The most surprising part was that he actually missed a gear going across the top of the mountain, so the lap could have been even quicker).

Improvements to the cars and the track surface have resulted in Murphy's lap being improved several times since – but usually during practice sessions. This, James Courtney told Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph in 2014, is why Murphy's lap still stands apart.

"He did it in a Shootout, which is over one lap," Courtney said. "He didn't even have a warm-up. It would be nice to be able to replicate that, but I think that lap will continue to be the greatest lap ever. That is why it is called the 'Lap of the Gods.' He just rolled it out and went bang ... here you go. [Craig] Lowndes has gone quicker in practice, but you get a couple of cracks at it in practice. It doesn't matter if you spray it in practice going hard, but it certainly does in a Shootout.''

But it wasn't just the raw numbers that made that lap resonate. It was the way the sport responded to it. You see Bowe shake his head, but then he chuckles. Pole at Bathurst would have been a massive result for the family-run BJR team, but whatever disappointment he felt took second place to his respect for what he was watching. Similarly, the sight of the entire pitlane forming a guard of honor as the No.51 returned to its garage can still give goosebumps.

There was a purity to Murphy's performance that no rule change aimed at "improving the spectacle" can ever hope to replicate. Racing's most dramatic moments happen organically. And they live long in the minds of those lucky enough to witness them.