Meeting local fans across from the beautiful Bargara beach, Supercars championship leader Shane Van Gisbergen said he enjoyed visiting the Bundaberg Region time after time.
Sipping his coffee from The Journey Café with a relaxed and friendly demeanour, Shane said someone he met here in the Bundaberg Region could go on to be the next supercar race champion.
“Anyone can, that guy who just drove passed in the van could, anyone given the opportunity and skill set could do this,” Shane said.
“It’s nice to come up here and hang out for a day and meet some people.
“You find towns like this, that they have a lot of race fans and people that love racing, but they don’t always get to go to races.
“It’s meeting the people that you don’t meet at the tracks, and with towns like this people are pretty friendly, so it’s nice to be here.”
Meeting the Red Bull Ampol Racing legend brought back memories for local Holden fans Adam Kirchner and Lenice and Michelle Richter.
Michelle said she and sister Lenice had been race car fans since the days when Peter Brock would make lapping the mountain at Bathurst look easy, and they spent a lot of time watching motorsports with their dad.
Wearing his Brock t-shirt, you couldn’t wipe the smile from Adam’s face as he and Lenice met with Shane on Saturday morning.
“I didn’t actually know he was coming, and because I have the Bundaberg Now app on my phone it just popped up,” Lenice said.
“It’s great promotion to have Shane here, especially as such a high-class racing car driver,” Michelle said.
“For someone of his calibre to come here to meet the locals is really nice.”
The first thing Supercars racing legend Shane Van Gisbergen did when he arrived in the Bundaberg Region on Friday was take his ute to be cleaned at Pacific Blue Car Wash.
Organising Shane’s visit to the Bundaberg Region, Pacific Blue Car Wash’s Nathan Teske said it was great for the community to meet someone with such an established sporting career.
“We have been supporting Shane through the car wash and through Pacific Blue Car Care as well,” Nathan said.
Nathan said the special luncheon event with Shane to raise funds for RACQ LifeFlight, was sold out and that was great to see.
