IN the space of merely 15 minutes, Cooper Murray proved that he belongs in the Repco Supercars Championship.
A simple look at the race results from his Triple Eight wildcard outing at the Darwin Triple Crown might seem uninspiring on the surface: 22nd and 25th.
But the truth is Murray showed he absolutely has what it takes to mix it with the best in the business, most obviously when he qualified fifth on the Sunday.
There is one skillset that often sets apart the ambitious youngsters who do and don’t cut the mustard upon graduating to the main game: raw speed.
Qualifying is so undeniably pivotal in Supercars.
Those who have had the pace to give themselves a chance to run at the front – think Matt Payne and Ryan Wood – have attracted enough of the limelight to outweigh any signs of being a little green or rough around the edges.
Others who’ve been stuck down the field all too often have tended to fade into obscurity. Besides the difficulty of racing forward, being trapped in the midpack or worse often leads to involvement in incidents, innocent or not.
There is the common motorsport saying which really does ring true: you can slow them down, but you can’t speed them up.
Murray might be the perfect example right now.
He has shown in Super2 this season that he might need slowing down sometimes, but there’s no doubting he has the pace to genuinely make a mark.
After all, he won from pole position in his very first Supercar race (Race 1 of the 2023 Dunlop Series).
This season, he has secured pole for two of the four Super2 races to date, outqualifying star Eggleston Motorsport teammate Kai Allen more often than not.
He has next to nothing to show for it, sitting 18th in the standings thanks to three non-points finishes (he crashed out twice at Bathurst, once self-inflicted and once not his fault, before being disqualified for his role in Cameron McLeod’s Perth rollover).
Those incidents can be tidied up with experience and guidance, but the key thing remains the speed that can consistently put him in the hunt.
The same applies to his Darwin Triple Crown outing.
Murray was spun by Jaxon Evans in Race 1 but pressed on to become the fifth driver in history to set the fastest lap in their first ATCC/Supercars Championship race.
The following day he was tangled in the opening-lap Turn 5 kerfuffle, ruining what he believes could have been a top five result after his qualifying heroics.
With a battered car, he still went on to become one of four drivers that afternoon to eclipse the Gen3 race lap record set by Jack Le Brocq 12 months earlier.
Again, it comes back to that irresistible trait: raw speed.
While there’s set to be far less Supercars silly season action than last year, it’s worth noting that two teams with key vacancies are familiar with Murray.
The 22-year-old sampled a Team 18 ZB Commodore in 2022 and an Erebus Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro last year.
Team 18 stalwart Mark Winterbottom is off-contract at season’s end – but does have two podiums already this year – while it’s widely expected Erebus will be without Brodie Kostecki in 2025.
Either team, or any others with an opening, could do worse than taking a punt on harnessing the super-speedy Murray.
