Executive Producer Murray Lomax heads the Network TEN Bathurst team and is the bloke responsible for putting the whole shooting match together.

Ever wonder why there's so much football shown on television? Apart from the obvious reason - the public wants to watch it - it's because it's easy, and therefore relatively cheap, for the TV networks to televise. At least in comparison to motorsport. Set up half-a-dozen regular cameras at a footy ground in the 'burbs, and a TV company has AFL or NRL coverage all sewn up.

Compare this to Bathurst, where Network Ten uses 37 fixed (mostly human operated) cameras and 43 in-car units, and covering a car race is a major logistical effort.

Ten's chief headscratcher is executive producer, Murray Lomax. He's the man responsible for solving one massive technical jigsaw puzzle - and he's got dozens of anecdotes to illustrate the myriad of challenges Ten faces at Bathurst.

"First, it's in a remote location, far more remote than any capital city event," Lomax emphasises.

"It's on the side of a mountain that can be very wet, very hot, very dusty, and can even hail and snow a bit. And some years it does all those things over the course of a weekend. I've arrived at Mount Panorama with two feet of water flowing down pitlane!

"We've got riggers out there 10 days before the race, trying to run 37-38 kilometres of cables, while overcoming all manner of situations.

"A couple of years ago, our head rigger (the bloke in charge of cabling and setting up the cameras) was working in the cold and rain for every day of the set up. He had a bit of a whinge to me about how tough it was working in those conditions.

"Anyway, his work was complete come Saturday (pole day) morning, and he had nothing to do - and it dawned warm and sunny. His next job was to derig on Sunday night, after the race. But as soon as the race finished, the heavens opened up, and he had to go and work in the pouring rain."

If you've ever tried to find a motel room at Bathurst, you'll know that accommodation on race weekend is rarer than a Rodney Forbes race win. Spare a thought for the Ten staffer responsible for finding enough beds for the network's 280 personnel.

"It's been a huge problem finding accommodation for that many heads, none of whom comes from Bathurst," Lomax said.

"Bathurst is really a university and farming town - it's not filled with accommodation. We have to fly people in from all over the country, and accommodate the majority for about five days - but some for longer - in various hotels and private homes."

TEN's Vital Statistics Fixed Cameras: 37 Camera operators: 42 Incar cameras: 45 Cars Carrying Cameras: 11 Tape Machines: 46 Cable: 37 kilometres Personnel: 280 Outside Broadcast Trucks: 2

Eaten out of house and home

Then there's feeding the crew - mostly big-eating men.

"On Bathurst race morning we've got people there at 4.00am preparing breakfast for the entire crew, and other guests," Lomax continued. "That's something in the order of 350 people fed on the Sunday morning alone!"

Speaking of more domestic matters, Ten has staff who organise drycleaning of specialist clothing.

"Our people in pitlane all wear Nomex fire suits and helmets," Lomax said. "They all get cleaned every day - so we have someone looking after that."

V8X would need to expand to the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica to talk about all the specialised gadgets the network carts to Mount Panorama. Suffice to say, it represents an A-Z of inventory, from aircraft to zoom lenses.

As to aircraft, Ten uses two choppers. One captures aerial shots of the picturesque circuit, while the other's sole purpose is to receive the links from the in-car cameras and beam them back down to Ten's outside broadcast truck. For the pilot of the latter, it's often no scenic flight.

"Sometimes he spends all day flying around in a circle in a cloud, without seeing anything at all," Murray laughed. "He'll do that for three and a half hours straight, come down to refuel, and go back up again."

Wuthering heights

While we are discussing heights, we can't overlook a man who is something of a cult figure within Ten's ranks, cameraman Colin Christmas. Colin spends raceday stuck 65 metres above Conrod Straight in a cherrypicker. Oh, did we mention that poor Colin is scared of heights?

Lucky Colin is house trained, as there are no toilet breaks on raceday - he only comes down when it is blowing a gale, or when there's the threat of lightning. One year, at Adelaide, Colin was indeed hit by a bolt from the blue. He escaped uninjured, but the bolt did apparently leave a legacy for about a week - a permanent erection!

Speaking of ensuring equipment is functioning properly, Lomax said Ten goes to great lengths to iron out any possible bugs in the system.

"The technology we are using is the equivalent of top end medical or space technology. It was somewhat cruder in years gone by. Everything is thoroughly tested. We have far fewer technical failures than we had in the past, yet the technology is far more sophisticated."

For the 2003 Bathurst telecast, Ten has waved bye-bye to the cumbersome system of recording and replaying action onto video cassette. By replacing tapes with computer hard drives, the chances of missing incidents and accidents has been greatly reduced.

"This is the first Bathurst where we'll have a fully networked hard-disked video recording operation. The advantage of having these hard disk recorders is that the machines can be playing back at the same time as they are recording. In the past, when we replayed an incident, we had to stop the tape and wind it back, running the risk of missing another incident seen by that camera."

But hiring 46 of these recording units - one for each fixed camera, plus a few more to record the in-car vision - doesn't come cheap. Each hard disk recording unit costs Ten $750 to rent per day, for five days. Add to this, the costs of paying, transporting, feeding and housing 12 machine operators, and the bill for this one facet of the telecast approaches $250,000. That's a cool quarter of a mill investment to ensure more incidents are captured.

It's a massive investment by Ten to cover the event, but the vast audience makes it worthwhile. Last year two million Australians tuned in, and many others in New Zealand, parts of South East Asia and beyond.

"It's seen live throughout Europe and North America, on specialty motorsport channels. Then there's the highlights packages that go out to something like 65 other countries." No matter how you look at, that's a bloody lot of people.

What's new for '03 So-called 'reality' television has seemingly taken over the airwaves. But what have shows such as Survivor and Big Brother really given us? Apart, of course, from a production line of self-obsessed wannabe celebrities? The answer: very little - until now. V8X is pleased to report that reality TV can be thanked for developing one gadget that looks set to provide a new Bathurst view. While Ten had no role in producing a British program shot in Queensland, Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, a technical supplier to the network did. The supplier then approached Ten's executive producer Murray Lomax, suggesting the technology would be ideal for Bathurst. "We've been working towards running what we call a 'flying camera' over pitlane," Lomax enthused. "It's been used as a camera that flies through the jungle for a celebrity lifestyle experience program. "It's a remote-controlled camera that flies along cables for about 160 metres, at 20 km/h, and gives us more flexibility in showing pit activity, and the grid. "There are quite a few practical issues we've yet to overcome, but it's part of what we really want to do." Beyond the 'flying camera's' likely appearance, Ten has other new tricks up its sleeve. Technology known as 'PitSmart', will enable the network to look ahead at the likely placings of cars once multiple pitstops have been completed. "For example, if the technology highlights that Greg Murphy will move up the rankings after his pitstops, we will keep a closer eye on Murph. In short, 'PitSmart' will better predict the likely result, enabling Ten's commentators and crew to tell the story of the race better. The regular V8 commentary team - Neil Crompton, Matthew White, Greg Rust and Daryl Beattie - will be joined by familiar face of Mark Oastler. "We're working on getting these guys behind the pit bunkers," Lomax continued. "We want more of a live feel to the Saturday and Sunday preliminaries, so it's more 'newsy'. But it's more risky to get pictures out of places, so we've been working on some new technology to enable us to follow drivers when they get out of the car. "These days, drivers don't hang around in the (pit) bunker (after a stint); they go off to the motorhome to rehydrate or have a massage. We need to follow them to get the info we want, as it's much more difficult to get the drivers up into commentary box. "But, if Greg Murphy cops another five minute penalty, we won't be following him into the portaloo!"