The second practice session for the Bathurst 1000 has been delayed after a snake was spotted lurking on the side of the Mount Panorama track.
After lead drivers blitzed the hour-long first session, co-drivers were due to hit the track at 4.55pm AEDT.
But an earlier oil spill during the Heritage Touring Cars session, combined with the sighting of the eastern brown snake at Forrest’s Elbow forced the session to be delayed.
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The snake was eventually removed and drivers hit the track after a 30-minute delay with the session extended.
“They’re wild. They’re one of the venomous snakes in the world,” Mark Skaife said in commentary.
Neil Crompton added: “We’ve seen some odd things over the years. We had the echidna. I confronted a horse. Larry Perkins and I were hooking over the hill once and a labrador jumped out of nowhere.
“It wouldn’t be Bathurst without some unusual things unfolding. The echidna crossed the track at The Cutting in 2021.”
Skaife was shocked by the size of it.
“That’s not just a little brown snake. Look at the size of it. I tell you what will also be the case, there will be campers looking at their TVs just to make sure it’s not going anywhere near their camp site.”
With the hour-long session reduced by 20 minutes, 41-year-old four-time Bathurst winner Jamie Whincup clocked a lap time of two minutes and 7.479 seconds to outpace Cooper Murray (Triple Eight) and Jayden Ojeda (Erebus) as cars battled to stay within the racing line due to the oil spillage.
Whincup’s Red Bull teammate Scott Pye’s day ended in frustration after losing the rear of his Chevrolet Camaro at The Cutting and crashing straight into the wall as the corner tightened.
Championship leader Will Brown, who won last month’s Sandown 500 with Pye, was optimistic the damage sustained to the front right of their car was minor.
“It’s one of those things that are super easy to do. I’ve done it there. I think everyone’s done it there,” Brown said.
“It looks bad on TV, where it’s torn out the wheel there, but hopefully it’s not too bad.
“We’ve seen small shunts that have big consequences and bigger ones that don’t do that much damage.”
Five-time Bathurst 1000 winner Garth Tander finished 11th fastest after main driver Matt Payne shot to the top of the timing charts in the dying minutes earlier on Thursday.
Payne finished with a day’s fastest time of 2m 7.294s lap, just 3.023s short of reigning series champion Brodie Kostecki’s qualifying record set last year.
Andre Heimgartner was left kicking himself after going faster than Payne in the first and second sectors before going too wide at the final turn.
The Brad Jones Racing driver battled throughout the session, suffering a complete power-steering failure in the opening 15 minutes before being made to abandon a lap after going straight through the gravel near turn 10.
He finished 13th fastest, while Brown’s Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney was in 15th.
Waters’ Tickford teammate Thomas Randle was able to place fifth after missing out on 35 minutes with a suspected power-steering pump issue.
Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert, second in the championship standings, was eighth.
Supercars legend Craig Lowndes in the Chevrolet Camaro finished last in 26th, while fellow wildcard entrant Matt Chahda was 24th.
– With AAP