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Renee Gracie: Fireproof premiered on streaming service Stan on Sunday, the 100-minute documentary covering all aspects of her life and career so far.
It starts from her introduction to karting, first as a hobby and then as a sport, before covering her move into Carrera Cup and then the Supercars system through the Dunlop Series and the Supergirls Bathurst 1000 wildcard programme.
The documentary then covers the process of her walking away from racing and discovering a second, highly lucrative career as an adult content creator – which ultimately led to her return to racing in GT World Challenge Australia.
The show casts a somewhat dim light on Supercars, however, with a number of different pillars of criticism levelled at the series.
Among the more explosive claims is that Gracie’s reaction to the infamous David Reynolds comment at the 2015 Bathurst 1000 was forced on her by Supercars.
According to Gracie she “loved” the pussywagon quip made by Reynolds in a press conference that would later earn Reynolds a $25,000 fine.
She claims she told Supercars she, “had no problem with it whatsoever”, however, “they basically said, ‘you’ve got to portray our thoughts, not what you think and how you feel’.”
Reynolds also features in the documentary, outlining that he was told by Supercars that he had to accept the $25,000 fine or it would be doubled.
Another explosive claim came from the aftermath of the same Bathurst race, when, according to Gracie, a corporate suite guest threw “a full VB beer can” at her head.
“It sort of like hit my shoulder, neck, head, bounced off me,” she said.
“I remember just pretending not to look embarrassed and almost looking like it didn’t hit me and it didn’t touch me and playing it cool.
“Security knew about it, everyone knew about it. They deemed him as not drunk. He was still in the corporate boxes above our garage, he didn’t get kicked out.”
While not necessarily relevant to the veracity of the claim, it is worth noting that Supercars was at the time sponsored by Coopers Brewery, which had exclusive rights to stock beer product in corporate suites at Supercars events.
Upon her career switch to creating adult content on OnlyFans, Gracie claims that Supercars made a concerted effort to distance her past involvement in the series.
“The feeling that I got from Supercars was, don’t mention Renee Gracie and Supercars in the same sentence,” she said.
“They pushed me so hard to be this sex symbol, this attractive looking girl that would earn them lots of money.
“So it was okay for you to benefit from it, but now you’re not getting the millions of dollars in your back pocket, it’s like, ‘no comment, I don’t want anything to do with it’. So I’ve been wiped from the memory of anything Supercars-related.
“That is funny and interesting to me.”
That claim appears to be based on an official no-comment issued by Supercars when news of her OnlyFans presence made headlines in 2020.
“Supercars is aware of the article regarding former Super2 driver Renee Gracie,” read the statement from the series. “As Ms Gracie is no longer competing in Super2, Supercars will not be commenting further.”
That theme ties in to a later claim that efforts to return to Supercars with a Bathurst 1000 wildcard were shut down by the series due to her ties with the adult content industry.
The documentary strongly suggests that an official wildcard application was lodged by Gracie, with a form of confirmation of it being refused coming via regular GT competitor and team owner Mark Griffith, who helped facilitate Gracie’s on-track return last year.
Griffith tells Gracie that two Supercars teams were interested in running her wildcard programme, “then they came back to me and said they’ve spoken to Supercars and they said no way, they would never give you a licence back.”
He added: “The teams agreed, Supercars didn’t.”
Supercars has confirmed to Speedcafe that it never received a wildcard application from Gracie, nor declined an application in any formal or informal manner.
Supercars also says it has no knowledge of any incident regarding a fan throwing a beer can at a driver after the 2015 Bathurst 1000.
Others to come under fire in the documentary include Gracie’s Dunlop Series team boss Paul Morris, who allegedly “programmed” her dash not to work during qualifying for the 2015 season opener in Adelaide, as well as her former manager Chris Jewell.
