Bathurst Art Car part already a museum piece after kangaroo hit

Delivered in record time, the museum’s latest exhibit is a piece of the right-front bumper from the #32 Team WRT BMW.

The car received minor damage at Hell Corner on the opening lap, before a kangaroo strike a short time later caused bigger issues.

That contact left the BMW shedding parts and triggered a mechanical black flag pit stop that dropped the Jordan Pepper/Kelvin Van Der Linde/Charles Weerts machine off the lead lap.

It was an early blow for the reigning winning entry, which is this year decked out in the colours of a BMW Art Car produced by Australian artist Ken Done for the manufacturer in the early 1990s.

The National Motor Racing Museum’s quick-thinking curator Brad Owen managed to snap up the piece via the team and have it hung on the wall within 90 minutes of being on the car in the race.

“I was over behind the pit garage grabbing a coffee when the car came in,” Owen recounted to Speedcafe.

“I thought, that’s a really iconic thing, it’s got a great Australian link and a story, I’ll go and ask the question.

“One of the mechanics who was cleaning it up and taking the useful parts off the front-end went and spoke to somebody and they were happy to put it on display.

“I wandered back and put it up with some of the other remnants of the 12 Hour we’ve been lucky enough to have from over the year.”

Owen affirmed it’s the first time the museum has added a piece from a race that remains in motion.

The National Motor Racing Museum is positioned on the outside of the circuit at Murray’s Corner and is open today until 4:30pm.