At yesterday’s Bathurst 1000 Supercar race, an echidna took a leisurely walk across the track and well and truly stole all the attention from Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Officially, the PM was there to present a Hall of Fame trophy to legendary driver Jamie Whincup. Unofficially, he was there to put his marketing hat on and embrace his nauseating ‘daggy Aussie dad’ persona to win over the thousands of everyday Australians in attendance.
In a disastrous day for Morrison, he ended up getting booed by the crowd. Sports editor at 9’s Wide World of Sports Simon Brunsdon even tweeted that Bathurst was “shameless” in letting the Morrison crash their party.
Shameless from the #Bathurst1000 to allow their event to be hijacked and turned into a cheap votes grab. Quick look at the hashtag stream on here tells you it’s having the opposite effect
— Simon Brunsdon (@SimonBrunsdon) December 5, 2021
Despite the PM’s best efforts to present himself as anything except a hard-boiled egg in reading glasses, he was thwarted by one of Australia’s most famous cultural icons. And no, Kath and Kim were not in attendance.
Halfway through the 1000km race, a small echidna decided to go for a Sunday stroll across the track in a move that not even the cleverest punter would’ve had on their multi.
To their credit, multiple drivers had the presence of mind to quickly swerve to avoid the native egg-laying mammal before the race was halted for 19 freakin’ minutes.
You won’t see me post about sport very often. But today on channel 7’s Bathurst 100 race an echidna crossed the road! Mega cute little creature. (Ch7 website also showed it squeezing through a gap to escape) pic.twitter.com/7jG6qVXvzk
— James One😷 (@james00000001) December 5, 2021
To make sure the creature could be kept out of harm’s way, a safety car was then sent out onto the track, letting the drivers know to slow down.
This measure is usually reserved for bad weather but yesterday it prompted the commentator to say quite rightly:
“What an Australian reason for a safety car.
“There’s an echidna on the edge of the racetrack, which we’ve got to look after.”
In a fairy-tale ending, the loose unit spikeyboi made a clean escape through a hole in the barriers.
Echidna is safely off the track. #RepcoSC #Bathurst1000 pic.twitter.com/fQWi8AKFWp
— JJ (@TomcatNASCAR_2) December 5, 2021
If this echidna ran against the PM in next year’s election, I’d vote for it.
