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Home / Whanganui Chronicle / Sport

Reynolds should have engaged brain before taking sexist track

jared.smith@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
Whanganui Chronicle·
9 Oct, 2015 08:00 PM4 mins to read

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Whoopsie. David old son, really should have thought before you spoke.

The action on Friday at Mount Panorama for the 2015 Bathurst 1000 should have been about Holden legend Jamie Whincup's amazing lap to knock off the 2m 5s mark on the circuit during practice.

Whincup's 2m 4.9097s smashed half a second off Kiwi Fabian Coulthard's record when the paint was still dry, having been set less than 24 hours before.

Now out of the running for the V8 Supercars title this season, the multiple-time champion Whincup will take winning Bathurst personal tomorrow - after missing out in consecutive years to Ford Performance drivers Mark Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert in two of the most thrilling finishes in the race's history.

I'll come back to this, but first we've got to go with David Reynolds making an idiot of himself in the press room.

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Asked a fairly innocuous question about fellow Ford drivers Simona de Silvestro and Renee Gracie, the first all-women crew at Bathurst since 1998, Reynolds injected what he considered some good humour.

ABC Media chose not to publish the comment when reporting on its fallout.

Stuff.co.nz had no problem doing so, although considering all their recent coverage of a certain radio presenter wearing a bikini identical to Kylie Jenner, that's probably no surprise.

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I'm at a quandary about repeating such an disrespectful statement by Reynolds towards fellow drivers - in the perfect world two people who he should have acknowledged as peers.

So let's leave it at this - remember the truck that Uma Thurman's character steals in Kill Bill Vol 1 from the perverted hospital attendant who repeatedly violated her while in a coma?

Remember what that truck was called? Yeah, Reynolds went there.

Now, many "good blokes" in the various online comments sections have pointed out ,with no irony intended, that Reynolds was just referencing that 2003 movie, given Thurman's character spends a fair portion of the flick driving said truck.

Again, the insensitivity goes right over their heads.

The character was raped by the vehicle's owner. His views on the worth of women were emblazoned by the vehicle's name.

V8 Supercars weren't laughing - boss James Warburton handing down a A$25,000 fine to Reynolds for the "disgraceful" comment.

"Women are an integral part of our sport, whether they are fans, drivers or team members.

"And V8 Supercars will continue to support and promote female participation at all levels of our sport."

The big worry here is that Reynolds believed he was giving the team good wishes with his joke - he genuinely wanted them to do well.

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Or should I say do well for, you know, girls.

I will admit there is a degree of hypocrisy in the way V8 Supercars wants to market their sport given we have all seen, and in my case admired, the various "grid girls" who model alongside the cars.

Reynolds and his fellow drivers are surrounded by that scene, nearly 24/7. Possibly it has skewed their view of the world.

What adds to the drama is the tasteless joke, which can be seen as belittling at best and outrageous sexism at worst, came right at a time when the women's ability to drive, based on their gender, was already under the microscope.

V8 legend Dick Johnson fanned the flames when he said De Silvestro and Gracie, who as of press time had the second-to-last time in the 26-car field for practice sessions, were "a million to one" odds to win but, more importantly, had no chance of finishing their first Bathurst.

I could be cute and mention to Johnson that last year Mostert had to come from dead last, following a driver penalty, to win Bathurst in just his second start in the endurance classic.

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But these young women don't need anybody to talk for them.

"Dick Johnson hasn't finished heaps of races so he can't talk," snapped Gracie.

"Because the attention is on us if we don't finish it would be a shame," added Silvestro.

"There are others who won't either. But I think we will prove them [critics] wrong."

For the record, Silvestro is one of three women to make it onto an IndyCar podium and was also an F1 test driver, while Gracie has been a regular in Queensland's V8 development series - so safe to say the high temperatures and long driving stints will not have her all-a-faint.

I'm not saying they are likely to pass and then hold off the likes of Whincup - even as a Ford man I feel this just has to be his year - or the other leading contenders like Winterbottom, Mostert, Coulthard and fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen.

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But I can't help but want Silvestro and Gracie to either outwit or outlast Reynolds.

We'll see who's laughing then.

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