Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate Nick Percat on winning last weekend's Bathurst 1000 as a rookie with experienced co-driver Garth Tander. The Bathurst 1000 is a gruelling 1,000-kilometre endurance race around the Mount Panorama circuit. It started back in 1963 to determine which car had the best combination of speed, performance and reliability. Nick is originally from South Australia, from my electorate of Boothby, but has recently relocated to Victoria to advance his racing. He went to school at Sacred Heart College. He grew up in Flagstaff Hill within my electorate.

Nick has been racing for the last 14 years, starting in sprint kart racing before moving to Formula Ford in 2005. Only 23 years old, Nick is the first driver since 1977 to win the race on debut at Bathurst. After 161 laps and 6½ hour's worth of driving, it came down to less than three-tenths of a second, with Nick being chased by Bathurst stalwart Craig Lowndes. Nick is only the second rookie in the history of the race to hold aloft the winner's Peter Brock Trophy at the end. The trophy was named in dedication to the late Peter Brock, the most successful driver in the history of the race, with nine wins. Nick enters a select group of people who have been crowned king of the hill, a group that includes Craig Lowndes, Mark Skaife, Peter Brock, Jim Richards, Larry Perkins and Allan Moffat. I would like to again congratulate Nick on a fantastic drive and a well-deserved race win. He has certainly achieved something at 23 that most racers will spend a lifetime striving for. He will definitely be one to watch in the future.