Adelaide 500 2003

CAT 14:08:2024

Looking back at some photos taken at the Adelaide 500 over many years, my digital collection starts at 2003. It was around this time I changed from a film camera to the convenience of a small Canon digital IXUS v2 camera. Taking lots of pics at 1024×768 to a 512mb compact flash card. The series was called V8Supercars back then and Adelaide was the second biggest event on the calendar. Bathurst was obviously the biggest. Adelaide was known as the City of churches it was quiet. To me though after living out Salisbury way years before, it was the home of the Holden plant at Elizabeth. Driving a VG Valiant with a 245 hemi, a three on the tree shifter and fluffy dice. Later changed the shifter to a Speco floor shift. Anyway back to the 500. It was the opening round of the championship that year and the 500 was split into two 78 lap races of 250 kilometers on Saturday and then another 250 kilometers on Sunday. Jason Bright racing a Holden Commodore VX for Paul Weel Racing took pole position on the Saturday, with a lap time of 1:23.3729. Marcos Ambrose won the Saturday race for Stone Brothers Racing in a Ford Falcon BA. On Sunday Mark Skaife won the race in a Holden Commodore VY from second on the grid taking the round win by 9 points over Steven Richards and Jason Bright was third for the round. Paul Radisich racing for Briggs Motor Sport was the best of the Fords with 5th for the round. I looked up those results on wikipedia as I don’t remember them.

I do remember seeing a beautiful GT40 in the Ford tent though and I took a few pictures of it. They also had a great example of an engine that was set up on a stand with the heads and covers raised up on extended studs so you could see inside. Classic cars were also racing that year with some great minis and a 1964 Falcon Rallye Sprint. Seeing cars like this race is always a highlight of the 500. On the green in front of the heritage grandstand there was a collection of fans Mustangs and Skylines. Nice blue Skyline R34. Thanks to the many people that put their cars on show for the weekend for us fans to have a wander around.