‘We just do it for the love of the sport’ Graeme clocks up 30 years with the V8 Supercars

Mullion Creek resident Graeme Crowden has been recognised for his 30 years of volunteer service with Australia’s Supercars Championship.

An unapologetic motor racing tragic, Graeme’s love of the sport developed at an early age and it's taken him around Australia and around the world.

“I've always liked motorcars, even when I was much younger, much to my father's disgust,” says Graeme, who originally hails from the “Apple Isle”.

“I used to sort of hot my cars up a bit, with lowering and all that stuff,” he continues. “Anybody that knows me, knows that I’m a bit crazy with moto racing, but I suppose there are a lot of other bad vices to have.”

It was actually motor racing that brought Graeme to Orange. Attending his first race at Bathurst in 1975, Graeme was a regular at the Mount Panorama circuit, but after being forced to find accommodation in Orange one year, he picked up a job and decided to stay.

It was in 1991, while flicking through an issue of the motorsport magazine Auto Action, that Graeme spied an advertisement looking for people interested in being flag marshalls.

“I rang up and It all started from there,” says Graeme, who worked his first Bathurst race the following year and he’s been right there at the starting line for every race since.

“And even now, when they’re revving up before they take off at the start of the race, I still get goosebumps,” he says with a grin.

“I don’t know if it's just the adrenaline and… when you're up close to them, you sort of feel part of it. It's just the hype with it all I suppose. They are big and loud and noisy — and the smell! Ah, yes! 

“It’s probably a bit crazy for people that don't like it; I appreciate that not everybody likes motor racing and watching cars go around and around, but that's sort of my passion I suppose!”

It’s a passion that’s led to some great friendships, Graeme says, as well as some unforgettable experiences.

“I suppose working at Le Man (24-hour race in France) is the biggest thing – that's the top of the tree,” he says.

Graeme and a friend flagged at Le Man in 2004 and 2008, and even got to walk the circuit ahead of the race.

He also flagged at the British Touring Car Championship in Thruxton, England in 2011.

And just this November, he found himself waving the chequered flag to James Golding, when he broke the S5000lap record in an exhibition lap at the TCR International Round in Bathurst.

But in all the years he’s been watching races at Bathurst, there’s one driver that stands out above the rest – the “King of the Mountain” himself, Peter Brock.

“I've always been a fan of Brocky and in 1979 when he won by six laps — and to record the last the fastest lap on the last lap —  is something that I don't many people can compare with that,” says Graeme, who describes himself as a “Holden man through and through”.

“And he was a bit of a gentleman, or any dealings I had with him, I thought he was at the top of it here in Australia.”