It’s five minutes past five on a Friday afternoon at Mount Panorama for the 2023 Bathurst 1000 and Qualifying has just been run. I’m sitting in a small broadcast room in the Bill Tuckey Media Centre (I’m able to get media accreditation through my day job as a radio announcer), directly above pit lane overlooking pit straight. Alongside me is veteran Channel 7 commentator Garry “Wilko” Wilkinson.
That afternoon Garry had been inducted into the Supercars Media Hall of Fame for his decades of service to the sport which included commentary of some of the Great Race’s most iconic moments such as the Moffat-Bond 1-2 in 1977, both of Peter Brock’s hattricks and calmly presenting the podium to a hostile crowd in 1992.
Already with a radio and sports presenting background, Wilko explained his time in motorsport only came to be when he agreed to cover for someone whilst having no technical knowledge of the sport. What followed was a famous partnership with the late Mike Raymond, Evan Green and a young Neil Crompton.
I was grateful for Wilko giving me some of his time before he left the circuit. What I thought would be a brief moment of a legendary sports commentator sharing his wisdom with a rookie of the game ended up becoming so much more.
Garry freely shared memorable yarns from his twenty-five plus commentating Australian Motorsport and what it was that made that time “the most fun, exciting and adventurous than the rest put together,” when compared with his time commentating for other codes including Tennis and the Olympics
Listen to the full chat here: