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New camera angles to capture every inch of Repco Bathurst 1000

11 Nov 2021
'Fans will see a totally different perspective on a really high incident and fast part of the track'
3 mins by James Pavey
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Five new camera positions will bring fans never-before-seen angles of this year's Repco Bathurst 1000.

Supercars General Manager of Television and Content Nathan Prendergast confirmed cameras will be positioned in new locations around Mount Panorama.

New camera locations at The Cutting, Reid Park, John Hinxman Vista, McPhillamy Park and The Chase will help bring fans even closer to the action.

The Supercars production team has worked for months on defining the exact position of the new cameras, even simulating thousands of laps from a millimetre-perfect position using the online iRacing platform used for the Supercars Eseries.

Supercars Hall of Fame inductee and commentator Neil Crompton has also been heavily involved in the project.

Crompton attended an annual survey of the Mount Panorama circuit last month alongside Prendergast and senior broadcast director Brian Forshaw.

"Fans are going to get a better coverage of a part of the track that has traditionally been a high incident location, but not necessarily covered as well from an incident perspective," Prendergast told Supercars.com.

"The run from the grate to McPhillamy Park is a high-incident area where so many people have crashed over the years.

"It’s where Will Davison crashed out [in 2010] and where Todd Hazelwood crashed in 2019.

"We currently have a high overview camera and a couple of specialty cameras there, but this new camera gets inside the cars and allows you to see the car from the other side of the track, which we have never done before.

"When the cars come over the hump into McPhillamy, that's when they are light on the inside corner, and we are thinking we will be able to see under the cars and give a totally different perspective on a really high incident and fast part of the track.

"The specialty cameras that we're adding are all about highlighting the speed and how close the drivers get to the wall in certain places.

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"We are excited to be able to highlight the speed and the challenges of what it takes to drive a Supercar at Bathurst."

"The Repco Bathurst 1000 television coverage is one of the largest-scale broadcasts in Australia in terms of production facilities and personnel," Forshaw added.

"It’s our goal to capture all the drama and excitement of The Great Race and deliver it to households and venues not just in Australia but around the world.

"We took the opportunity to walk the track looking for new and innovative ways of capturing the speed and attitude of the cars along with the skill of the drivers through the TV lens.

"We walked the track and drew on on Neil’s [Crompton] racing experience to explore a raft of new camera angles which were then transposed into the iRacing platform.

"It gave us a true sense of how our ideas would look through the TV lens.

"The results were incredible and I can’t wait to see fans' reactions when the cars hit the track for the Repco Bathurst 1000."

"It was so rewarding to visit the Mountain again just recently," Crompton said.

"There’s a familiar and addictive buzz I always experience driving along Panorama Ave into the circuit, it makes my hair stand up.

"We crawled in, around, and over every millimetre of the track and reviewed the coverage plan from every imaginable angle.

"We cast aside the word 'no', jettisoned budget and technical complexity constraints and looked at how we make the cars leap off the screen.

"I was doing paintings in the air with pretend Supercar body language like a teenage racer.

"The shots we are imagining over the top of the hill at Reid Park, McPhillamy, and through The Chase will bring to life the best of what we all love about Supercars."

Tickets for the Repco Bathurst 1000 are on sale now.

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