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There are plenty of memories from Mount Panorama for Radisich and his fans.
When Bathurst fires up this week, spare a quiet moment?s thought for Paul Radisich.
It's been a year since the massive crash at McPhillamy Park that ended his career as a racecar driver. The Rat, a nickname he never liked until it became fun and profitable, is up and about these days but will never be completely whole again. His back took a heavy hit and that has been harder to heal than injuries to everything from his ankles and legs to sternum.
But Radisich, a gritty Kiwi who won a couple of world touring car championship before he transplanted from Britain to become a V8 Supercar racer, refuses to get down. "My health is fine. I just cannot put any loads through my body. I still have to rest a bit because I just cannot do what I used to be," Radisich tells me this week.
He has plenty of reasons to be upset, because last year's crash was his second big hit at Mount Panorama. He was barely recovered from the first one in The Chase when he returned as a coach and long-distance co-driver with Walkinshaw Racing for 2009. "It's a place that hasn't liked me at all. I must have been there 17 times and how many times have I finished? A couple, I guess," Radisich jokes. "It was pretty much second place or nothing for me. I never did get it. "I was semi-retired away from the championship series, but I was keen to keep the enduros going. It came to an abrupt halt."
This weekend he is commentating for New Zealand television on The Great Race but already has his bags packed for another big change, moving his wife Patricia and their young family back to the UK. It's a business opportunity, as well as the chance to be close to family, and so he is leaving Melbourne. And Bathurst.
There are plenty of memories from Mount Panorama for Radisich and his fans, but mine comes from 1999 when he broke down while leading in one of Dick Johnson's Falcons.
The Rat was on the long walk back to the pits when he stopped to talk to a horse. It looked like a touching scene. "I thought it was only one person in the world whose day was worse than mine," Radisich says.
But there is more to the story, as I remember from Patricia's reaction to the scene on the television. "I cannot believe it. Paul is allergic to horses," she said.
