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[Renee Gracie] Ever since I was thirteen...
...all I wanted to do was to be a race car driver.
[crowd cheering in the distance]
[cars revving]
[reporter] And there's a new face in V8 motor racing
and she's determined to be a force in the sport.
[crowd cheering]
[reporter] Renee Gracie will make history this weekend.
She's the first female...
[reporter] Competing in the pinnacle
of Australian motorsport.
[reporter] The horrendous crash at the Top of the Mountain.
[reporter] She's destined to become
Australia's first female V8 Supercar driver.
[indistinct shouting]
[Renee] Motorsport's the only sport
where people can compete male or female.
You can't tell the difference
between a boy and a girl on the track.
But there had been no full-time female Supercar driver ever.
[Renee] Everyone wanted to know if I was going to be it.
[Renee] How's it going?
- G'day, how are ya? - Good.
[upbeat music]
[Renee] My name is Renee Gracie.
I used to race V8 Supercars.
I am currently an OnlyFans model
and I'm an adult content creator.
OnlyFans is basically a social media platform.
Think of it like an Instagram, a Facebook.
Except you can set yourself up to have a subscription
and then that unlocks a whole world of explicit content.
I do everything. Solo videos. Boy-girl videos.
I do girl-girl videos, armpit licking, toe sucking.
You name it, it's being done.
Being the ex-racing car driver, slash Supercar driver,
turned porn star,
I think I can count on two things
for my OnlyFans subscribers to like.
And that's me.
I think they like me and then motorsport.
I think combining the two worlds is the ultimate dream.
[Renee] Good boy. [dog panting]
[Renee] The main thing that I always get asked,
on my OnlyFans page is when I'm going back racing.
[sighing]
There's a lot of things I don't miss about motorsport.
I think the political side of things,
the media and the pressure
and the expectation to always be perfect.
Driving the car to the absolute point
where I couldn't physically go faster anymore.
I was at my limit and that's,
that was what made me fall in love with motorsport.
[Renee] It all started
on a family holiday at Hamilton Island.
My sister and my mum wanted to go paragliding.
Fun fact, I hate heights.
Heights is not my thing. Um, so I refused.
I'm like, absolutely not. I'm not doing it.
Anyway, my dad, thank God,
didn't want to go on the paraglider either.
So he's like, let's you and I go find something to do.
Found a pamphlet that said,
'Hamilton Island Go Karting Track'.
We went out first tandem, so I could be with Dad.
Came back in and I was like,
can I go on my own? I don't want to go with him.
Like, how embarrassing, he's so shit.
So I asked if I could go by myself
and I was like right on the cut off.
You had to be thirteen but I was only twelve.
They let me go out by myself in my own Go Kart.
Renee just takes off, like there's no tomorrow.
[Go Kart accelerating] [upbeat music]
[Renee] So I overtook Dad, like, twice.
I thought, this is definitely related to weight.
I'm heavier than her, so I've got to be slower.
That's, that's all it can be.
[Renee] Dad's looking at me like,
oh, she must be in a better, faster Go Kart than me.
Something's wrong with mine.
Changed Go Karts over, started lapping him again.
[Ray Gracie] So I started to try and chase her
and I just couldn't catch her, and she was just so fast.
[Renee] And I was just hooked. I love this.
Like, I don't want to do anything else.
She says, this is really good.
Is this a sport? Can we do this?
[Renee] When we got home from Hamilton Island
I nagged Dad, can we go Go Karting?
Is there a Go Kart track around?
We actually watched the race
to see what we were getting involved in.
That was a real shock.
It was chaos to be honest.
I literally had a heart attack.
Kids were like rolling over and were, like,
thrown out of Go Karts.
[Ray] I looked at her and I said, "You can't be serious?
"You're not going to fucking do this!"
I was like, yeah, this is exactly what I want to do.
She's going ape shit. She was like - this is fantastic.
This is what we're going to do.
I was like so excited.
[Renee] From that moment on
it was just all I could think about,
all I spoke about.
It was just Go Karting.
Mum was not happy.
Her concern was the safety side of things,
but I was already obsessed with it.
So I started nagging my dad.
All I wanted was a Go Kart.
I went onto my dad's computer
and I just typed in Go Kart and then I pressed 'enter'
and then I just left it open on his screen, like, accidentally.
[Ray] Then we decided to dip our toe in
and get a second-hand Kart,
and a second-hand engine.
We didn't have a lot of money for Go Karting.
I remember the first guy we went to buy his Go Kart
and he looks at me and he goes, "Is this for a girl?"
I went, "Yeah".
"Sorry mate, I'm not going to waste it on a girl".
I went, "Oh, okay".
I think we've just got a bit of an indication
of the things that we're going to be up against here.
[crowd cheering]
[Ray] We started racing junior level at that stage.
[Renee] I was probably one of the only female drivers there.
It was just a real intense father and son sport.
[Ray] Most of the kids that were racing
were racing because of their fathers.
Their dads wanted them to do it,
where Renee wanted to do it
and she was dragging me along.
Unfortunately my mechanic for a lot of it was my dad,
who is absolutely not qualified to be a mechanic
in any way, shape or form.
My dad is, I call him a pen pusher.
He's an accountant. He didn't own a screwdriver at home.
[Ray] She got an old bike helmet, cheap suit,
with a bloody Kart that was a piece of crap -
mechanic by an idiot.
We realised we didn't have a bloody clue what we were doing.
[Renee] We got a lot of commentary in the beginning.
You shouldn't be here, girls don't belong on track.
[Ray] Wasting your time, wasting your money,
not a sport for girls.
You could hear fathers saying, "Don't you let her beat you".
[man] Get in front of her.
[Ray] You could hear them priming the boys
to be really aggressive.
[man] Put her in her bloody place.
[Renee] Guys wouldn't let me pass them.
People were basically just not braking
and running straight into me.
[upbeat music]
[Renee] I got crashed into, I got taken out.
[crowd cheering]
[Ray] The boys ganged up on Renee.
They worked together against her.
Destroyed our Kart.
It was a, a nightmare of a weekend.
I think she cried all the way home from there.
Four hours of crying.
And I said, "Well, this is what you -
you want to keep doing this?
"This is what you're going to be up against."
He basically just said,
"Just tell everyone to get stuffed.
"You aren't the same as everybody else.
"They don't think you deserve to be here."
You want to do it?
Stand up for yourself.
[Renee] I just knew that I wanted
to give everything I had to go racing.
[Go Kart revving]
[Renee] Dad and I had every excuse under the sun
to give up but we chose not to.
We started a race and I think I was in fourth or fifth.
And then sure enough I just feel this Go Kart
run straight over the top of me.
[skidding sounds] [crashing sounds]
[Renee] And I just saw red.
Hopped out of my Go Kart. Walked up to him.
Opened up his visor, grabbed him by the neck
and punched him straight through the visor of his helmet.
The boy's father went ballistic.
And he abused her for twenty minutes,
calling her every name under the sun.
If they swore at me, I'd swear back,
I'd stand up to them, I'd square up to them.
Push, shove, point, poke, flip off, you name it,
I'd do whatever I have to.
That's just the levels and the extents that I had to go to.
Never the instigator, always the retaliator.
[gentle music]
[Ray] When she was growing up
Renee was feisty - is a good word.
Yep. Feisty.
She got a nickname right at the very beginning
when she was about two.
She's got the smile of an angel and the bite of a crocodile.
And that continued through.
Every year from day care through to Year 10,
we'd have to go to the Headmaster for something
at least once a year.
[sighing]
We go back to preschool.
There was an argument over a tricycle
and a boy tried to push her off the tricycle.
So, he pushed her off.
She stood up and says, "Yes, you can have the tricycle."
Picked it up and smacked him over the head with it.
So we were always careful
not to encourage them to do anything wrong.
But if someone does the wrong thing,
well you've got to stand up for yourself.
[Renee] I just grew this like thick skin
to always stand up for myself.
That really changed everything in regards to my results.
[Renee] I know that if I don't crash...
...I can actually finish.
[Renee] From that point on
I was pretty much in the top four of Australia.
I always knew that I was sort of going to be up the front.
[upbeat music] [crowd cheering]
[Ray] A guy called Chris Jewell approached us
and said he thought there was an opportunity
for a female driver to go racing cars.
Renee was 14 when we first, uh,
created our relationship.
[Renee] Yeah it was good, we weren't -
only like 20 minutes or something, so...
[Jewell] She was very green and very young
but she is very driven, very focused, incredibly competitive.
There's never been a successful full-time female
at championship level.
So, we devised a career management plan
to try and get a female to ultimately aspire to race
advanced Supercar championship level.
Racing driver, Renee Gracie, will make history this weekend.
She's the first female to compete in
the Porsche Carrera Cup.
[Ray] Chris got the sponsorship from Fujitsu
and they've got her into Porsche.
[reporter] The Porsche Carrera Cup will, for the first time,
have a full-time female race driver.
[Renee] Realistic goals is just to learn.
I don't want to make a fool of myself, obviously.
It was into the bloody deep end.
You just got to learn how to swim real quick.
[commentator] Renee Gracie, the teenager for the Fujitsu team.
[commentator] This is the first car that Renee has driven.
Pretty tough job jumping one of these things.
They're very, very tricky to drive.
[Renee] I was pretty much straight away, like,
passing people and being really quick.
[commentator] Showing great speed.
[Ray] Then she became the first girl to be on the podium
in Porsche as well.
[commentator] And that's Renee's first professional class podium
in her career.
[Renee] I had the best time
of my whole entire life of motorsport racing in Porsche.
I was doing what I loved doing.
[Damien Smy] I think the first time I probably heard the name
Renee Gracie, was when she was in Carrera Cup.
Uh, my name's Damien Smy and I'm the Editor in Chief
of Australia's biggest motorsport website.
I think what's amazing about Renee's story is
the diversity in motorsport is almost zero.
In almost every level.
So, the spotlight was on her as a woman.
Only a teenage woman at that stage as well.
[commentator] Renee Gracie - her last round of Carrera Cup.
She's moving on to V8 Supercars.
[reporter] After two years,
the twenty-year-old has become the first woman
since Leanne Tander in 2001 to race full-time in V8s.
It's pretty cool. I can't believe it
but I think I've earned my spot.
[Smy] Renee moving to Supercars,
uh, it's a pretty big jump.
[crowd cheering]
[Smy] Supercars is the pinnacle of Australian motorsport.
It's the most competitive, fiercely contested series.
It's Supercars above anything else in Australia
in terms of motorsport that's watched on TV.
[John Ruggiero] I know why Renee was chosen.
My name's John Ruggiero
and I'm a Managing Director of Push Talent Management.
At the time sport was rushing for inclusion.
They needed to bring in a woman - into that seat.
So, Renee was thrust into Supercars,
because she was the only female.
It was probably too soon.
But, they had to do something.
[Smy] A woman in motorsport in Australia...
She had to prove her ability.
[Ruggiero] What we haven't seen is a woman
really being able to compete seriously,
to challenge for a podium, let's say.
There was this amazing fascination
around whether Renee could be that person.
[Renee] The very first time I drove a V8 Supercar,
I remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is out of control.
The stuff that I used to focus on,
as a driver in Porsche, the car could always do.
But when I was trying to do that in a Supercar
the car wasn't doing it.
I realised quite quickly that it was a huge leap
and I really should have had another year
of experience under my belt.
I started going to the gym six days a week.
The main thing was upper body strength for gear changing,
fighting the steering wheel.
Leg strength as well.
Every brake application in a Supercar
is like an eighty-kilo leg press.
I worked really hard to be on par with most of the males
I was racing against.
[reporter] Renee has teamed up
with V8s veteran and Bathurst Champion,
Paul Morris this year, and there could be no better mentor.
I always find that women learn a lot better than guys.
Guys think they know it all.
[Renee] When I first started in the development series
I was racing with Paul Morris Motorsport.
[commentator] Morris, go, go, go, go, go, go!
[crashing]
[reporter] You were voted the dirtiest driver on the paddock.
How do you feel about that?
[Morris] I'll probably have to go have a shower.
[Renee] My first impressions of Paul
is that I was scared of him.
He was the team owner, team boss.
He had also just won the Bathurst 1000.
I knew that he loved to fight.
[commentator] He gets out of the car.
Oh no, he's put the biffo back into the bingle.
[Renee] I knew that he was controversial.
He's picked the wrong bloke to have messed with.
So when the opportunity arises I'll repay the favour,
no problems, so...
[Renee] I feel like that's why he chose to run me.
He didn't care about people's opinions.
[Morris] I reckon all the other guys are a bunch of pussies,
so it's good.
I think the cracks started to form relatively quickly.
I didn't have a driving training coach,
I didn't have an engineer, I just had Paul.
[Morris] Squirt the fuel in - number one.
[Renee] It just wasn't enough for me
because I was learning these cars.
I wanted more information, I wanted to see, like, my times
and I can actively try to be better while I'm in the car.
I complained about it a little bit
and just said I need more help.
He was like, what you're asking for is too much
and you shouldn't need that to be a better driver.
The way he made me feel -
I needed everything and I was hard work
and I wanted the world...
To make it out like I was high maintenance
or like a 'princess' for example.
[Ray] She wouldn't tell me a lot,
because I wasn't really dealing with him.
The fathers that are paying get to be involved,
but fathers whose daughters are fully sponsored
are more of a nuisance than a value, so,
you don't tend to be going as much as you,
as you did before.
[Renee] It was about two weeks before the Adelaide 500,
my first race in a Supercar.
I've never raced here before so I don't know what to expect.
[reporter] ...what you're seeing out there.
Yeah, very. It's taken a bit of a weight off.
[Renee] I was coming from an interview,
going to another interview.
I was texting my mum and I was like, I'm running so late.
And I said, "Can you just make me a quick sandwich?
"Chuck it in a Ziploc bag or something
"and I'm just going to get it and go."
She's like, "Yep, no worries."
I got home and there was the sandwich in the kitchen...
...and I'm like, "Mum!"
My gut was just telling me
that something was like seriously, seriously wrong.
And then I looked outside
and my mum was laying on the ground.
[tense dramatic music]
[Renee] I got a bit closer and I saw blood.
[phone ringing]
[Ray] And I got a phone call from Renee,
which is like a mad panic phone call,
"Mum's fallen over."
The ambulance arrived within like five minutes.
She sort of came to, I was like, "Mum, Mum, it's me!"
She looked at me and she's like, "Who the hell are you?"
She didn't even recognise who I was.
It was like she had never seen a human before.
She was present but she wasn't Mum.
We went to the hospital
and that's when we found out that it was way worse
than what we could have ever expected.
[machines beeping]
[Renee] They showed us a scan of her brain
and just said this is one of the worst brain bleeds
we've ever seen.
[Ray] She'd had a major brain aneurysm
on the right-hand side of her brain.
And if she comes out of this it'll be a miracle.
[Ray] That was around about two or three weeks before
Renee's first race in the Dunlop Series.
[reporter] The countdown to the V8 Supercars
first race of the year is on,
with teams arriving in Adelaide for the Clipsal 500.
[Renee] Mum hadn't woken up from the coma,
so we were expecting her not to make it.
I pretty much got told to, man up!
We went out for qualifying and that was the first time
being at a track, racing a Supercar.
[Renee] And then when I exited pit lane...
...the dash went blank.
[silence]
[Renee] I could see nothing. I had no idea what gear I was in.
Couldn't see when to shift gears.
You can't see if there's a warning.
I was radioing pretty much straight away.
No response, no reply.
I just remember feeling like, confused and flustered.
Paul was the one who got back to me saying,
"Yep, I made it like that for a reason,
"just go for it and fucking press on."
So it was programmed so I could see nothing
once I was out of the pits.
[tense music] [cars revving]
[Renee] And when I hopped out of the car,
I walked straight over to Chris.
"You turned the fucking dash off,
"I couldn't see anything."
And I just lost it.
Paul came over as I was blowing up.
And he said, "All the good drivers don't need it,
"so you don't need it.
"You don't need numbers to tell you what to do
"and how to go fast.
"You should just want to go fast."
I don't even know where I qualified.
I'm pretty sure it was like last.
I had to answer to Fujitsu and to all my sponsors,
and say why I had such a horrible qualifying session.
And that was the first race we had together as a team
and that was pretty much the start of the end.
[slow tense music]
[Renee] Media and my image started to grow.
Attention on me started to grow.
[Todd Sampson] Renee, how does it feel to be a woman
competing brilliantly in a male dominated sport?
Um, well I'm always used to being the only female
so it's nothing really out of the ordinary for me.
[Renee] Being the only female - it became apparent to everybody
that there was extra attention on me,
comparative to the other drivers.
I'm not going to walk around with a suit around my waist
and in a bikini top.
I'm here to race. I'm as serious as any of the other guys.
It was never really a thing that I strived for,
to be the only female.
I didn't really care, but obviously the media did.
The fast and female - great woman.
She's taking it to the men at the Grand Prix.
Her name's Renee Gracie. There she is.
[Renee] I was on TV and there was a lot more people watching.
Looks was a huge part of everything that I did.
[reporter] Renee Gracie looks like she belongs on the catwalk
but it's the racetrack that she calls home.
[reporter] Renee's also a marketing dream,
and her good looks secure sponsorship deals.
[Renee] It was embedded in me
that I needed to look a certain way.
That came from my manager, my sponsors
and all the people internally,
telling me to be this perfect looking woman.
A hundred percent a marketing ploy
to get people coming to get hats and merchandise
and to get people coming to the racetracks and watching.
It was very clear that Supercars was more concerned about
having a good-looking female racing car driver in Australia
that was going to make everyone lots of money.
That was, that was my job.
I've been blessed with some great sponsors
and some great people.
[Renee] But that took away from my Development Series program,
as I was still learning how to drive a V8 Supercar.
[reporter] This season,
she moved into the V8 Supercars Development Series,
but rising through the ranks hasn't been easy.
It was really starting to interfere with her progress.
Renee Gracie, come and join us.
Hey Renee. Now you're behind the wheel.
Tell us what that's like.
[commentator] And Renee Gracie's in the gravel.
Her education continues.
[man laughing]
It was one-percent racing and the rest was all bullshit.
Nothing was relevant to what I originally loved doing
and that was racing.
This year was a pretty big learning curve.
Finished this race off,
obviously not with the best result.
I think for the best drivers,
the background noise doesn't matter.
Elite sports people don't get affected
by what's going on outside.
So I think that shouldn't make a difference.
You've provided...
[Renee] Chris was starting to become pushy
and more demanding with how I looked.
One week, I might have come,
and I might have looked a bit heavier
and Chris would say, "Hey, have you put on weight?
"Your face is looking chubby."
There'll never be a requirement for Renee
to be a catwalk thin model.
As long as Renee can be a girl that weighs circa, sixty kilos.
[whispering] She's actually sixty-five.
But I'm not going to say that. [men laughing]
'Circa' has a bandwidth.
[man] That's right, yeah,
you've got a bit of room to play with there.
[tense music]
[Ray] You could just see the stress,
the pressure in her, it was just enormous.
In the meantime, we're trying to go to the hospital
every opportunity to see what's happening.
[machine beeping]
[Ray] Sue was in hospital for six months.
[Renee] They basically said the chances of her, um,
waking up off life support are slim to zero.
[beeping]
[Ray] There was a slight flicker on their scanning.
[Renee] Slowly over another couple of weeks she,
she finally woke up.
[Ray] She lost all cognitive ability.
She's got no short-term memory.
Got no balance.
[Renee] She's in an aged care home
for people who have brain injuries.
She barely recognises us when we come in.
We sort of have to jig her memory
on who we are and why we're visiting her
and it's just, yeah, it's really hard.
[Renee] Mum before the accident -
stubborn, loud...
A strong, independent...
Not afraid, not scared...
Kind of like me, I guess.
[Renee] I just grew this like thick skin to cope and,
and move on.
[Jewell] It must have played on her mind and,
and troubled her more than she actually,
gave me that impression.
Renee deals with a lot of things very privately.
It's sometimes very hard to get, you know,
what's in Renee's head out of what's in Renee's head.
[Ray] I think, personally, that it's really a side effect
of the pressures that she was under growing up, in cars.
She's mentally tough.
You just could not have done any of this
if you hadn't been tough.
[reporter] How do you feel about
being one of the only female competitors?
Yes, there are lots of guys around and, you know,
you do get a bit lonely sometimes.
But, um, yeah, that's just part of the job
and I love what I do and I put up with it.
[tense music]
[birds calling]
[Jewell] Renee's first year, I devised an opportunity
to create an all-female wildcard entry at the Bathurst 1000.
[Renee] I had such a bad year with no results.
The Bathurst 1000 was going to be my opportunity
to show people what I could do in the car.
[reporter] Brisbane V8 driver, Renee Gracie,
will create history at the Bathurst 1000 this year,
when she tackles The Mountain.
[commentator] And welcome to Mount Panorama,
exclusive coverage of The Great Race.
[reporter] Arguably Australia's toughest racetrack.
[reporter] 161 laps, seven hours of racing.
[reporter] 200,000 people are expected to cheer on
their heroes this weekend.
[reporter] Bathurst is the holy grail of motor racing.
It's the race of all races, mate.
Come on, Bathurst!
Fuck you!
[man] The race is an excuse
to get away from your wife and family.
[reporter] Receiving almost as much attention,
the scantily clad promotional girls.
Oh, if we stop getting grabbed on the backside.
I know.
[Renee] Chris was telling me we've got an opportunity
to do the Bathurst wildcard, we need to find a driver,
we're going to do a female driver and a female team.
[Smy] A wildcard entry, it's like a bonus entry
or a one-off entry.
And the opportunity with wildcards
is that it gets more eyeballs on Supercars
and it gets more people in the gate watching motorsport.
It's extremely exciting, um...
[Ray] Renee was the only potential V8 female driver.
So Chris started searching the world for a female driver
that wanted to come and race.
[commentator] ...de Silvestro for the first time
on the podium.
[Smy] Simona de Silvestro is a Swiss racing driver,
highly credentialed in terms of IndyCar in particular.
[reporter] Taking a break last year to test Formula One.
[Renee] Simona was very keen to come over and do it.
Always kind of seen that racetrack
and seen that race and always wanted to be part of it.
[man] This way ladies.
[Renee] It became Simona and I, the 'Harvey Norman Supergirls'.
[reporter] Gracie and her Swiss teammate, Simona de Silvestro,
dubbed the 'Supergirls'.
[reporter] The first all-female entry in seventeen years.
[Renee] It was great to finally have a
comparable female figure in your life.
My whole life I'd never really spoken to
a female racing car driver before.
[reporter] There's only ever been one other all-female team
to race Bathurst, back in 1998.
Melinda Price and Kerryn Brewer,
the first Castrol Cougars who took on the boys
in endurance racing.
[Smy] I think if you just group two female drivers together
because they're female, that doesn't make any sense.
Some fans might have seen it as
you put two females in the car because, that's,
you know, minimises the risk.
Because to be frank we wouldn't put Simona in with a guy
or Renee in with a guy because that's a waste of an entry.
The Castrol Cougars thing as well.
I went to Bathurst '98,
It's just - yeah, there's the girl's car.
Like, are they any good?
I don't know, never heard of them.
So you go, where have they come from?
Oh, they're in it just because they're women,
to be frank, so...
[reporter] Thousands of race fans
have already started setting up camp at Mount Panorama,
more than a week out from the Bathurst 1000.
[man] Yeah!
[man whistling]
[man] Hey Gracie...
[Renee] The media was just out of control.
Probably been thrown in the deep end a little bit.
- Brand new world for me. - A bit of pressure.
- Difficult to drive. - A lot to take in.
I'm kind of the lead driver
with the no experience in a V8 Supercar.
[Renee] We both didn't have much experience.
[reporter] Racing legend Dick Johnson expressing doubts
the first female Bathurst team
will be able to finish the 161 lap race.
[reporter] Some have criticised
the inclusion of the all-female team,
suggesting it's a gimmick to generate more media attention.
I don't agree with how V8 Supercars
are throwing the money, you know, supporting her.
[Renee] Groups of men would scream things and shout things.
"You're fucking useless!"
"You should be in the kitchen."
"You should be making sandwiches, not on a racetrack."
"Get your tits out and go be a grid girl."
"You don't deserve to race."
All of those sorts of things were,
were very common, all the time, all the time.
[birds calling] [distant chattering]
Danika joins us now with some breaking news from Bathurst.
Danika.
Dave Reynolds is in some trouble tonight
after making a sexist remark about the all-female team.
[reporter] These are the comments
that David Reynolds is under fire for.
[interviewer] David, uh, were you wary of the female team?
[Reynolds] Sorry, was I aware of the pussywagon?
[men laughing]
There was a comment made calling us the 'pussywagon'
and it was made by David Reynolds.
[man] David, interview one, take three.
My name is David Reynolds and I'm a V8 Supercar driver.
David Reynolds has won
his second career V8 Supercars race in Darwin
and was quizzed about his subdued celebration post-race.
I'm known as the class clown in my sport.
[reporter] Well he more than made up for it on the podium,
drinking out of his boot, which may explain
how he got the stomach pains in the first place.
Yeah, Dave, um, is a unique talent, you could say,
and gets himself into some trouble.
Yeah, I always seem to put my foot in it.
- Honk if you're horny. - Honk, honk.
[Reynolds] Bathurst Thursday is just a normal practice day
and I ended up third fastest car for the day.
So the top three drivers go to a press conference.
And then someone asked,
"Did you see the all-women car out there?"
And then I sort of said, "What do you mean, the pussywagon?"
That was it.
I loved it, I wanted to run, like, merchandise
and I wanted it to be, like, my new nickname.
I could see it as being, like, it's something that's really -
could've taken off and could've been really quite cool.
We were with Ford Performance Racing
and Dave was in the team,
so we used to say all sorts of stuff like that.
Yeah, we used to take the piss out of each other all the time.
[Reynolds] Maybe about an hour later
one of the engineers from the other side of the room
looks up and goes,
"Hey Reynolds, are you getting a $25,000 fine?"
And I just went, hmm, not that I know of.
[Reynolds] A few minutes later there was a knock at the door
and there was a Supercar representative
with a piece of paper in his hand and he handed it to me.
He said, "Don't contest it or they're going to double it...
"..to $50,000."
So that sort of scared me into signing the deal.
[Reynolds] And so I was basically forced into
taking the largest fine ever given to a driver.
[Ruggiero] The fine that he got was the biggest fine in,
as far as I'm aware, the history of Australian sport.
[reporter] David Reynolds' comments
have been slammed as disgraceful.
- A sexist comment. - A sexist remark.
- For an offensive comment. - [reporter] A sexist slur.
I thought, like, am I going insane?
Am I really a sexist?
For a moment I would have said
that Dave's career was finished.
[Renee] Supercars had already told Chris
that I had to then make a public statement,
and I remember saying to Chris,
"I'm not making a statement.
"I've got no problem with it whatsoever."
And Chris turned around and he said,
"No, like, you have to make a statement or
"Supercars will pretty much make one on your behalf."
They released an apology
with my name attached to it saying it was from me.
[tense music]
[Reynolds] I can't even remember what it said
because I wasn't part of it at all.
Very, very strange they can do something like that.
[Renee] I let them know that I didn't have a problem with it
and they basically said,
"You've got to portray our thoughts,
"not what you think and how you feel."
Slightly inappropriate and, uh, yeah,
it's one of those things, V8 Supercars have handled it,
and uh, Simona and I will get on with our job today,
which is driving a race car.
[Reynolds] I knew that she was a puppet.
When she was on camera, she wasn't...
That was not her true self.
And I get it, I understand it, I know. I'm in the same sport.
[Renee] Basically how I sort of
got fed information from Supercars,
there was a big thing in the media
about how male sportsmen were treating women.
Rugby league is maligned, usually fairly,
as the worst behaved sporting code.
The NRL has come under blistering attack.
[reporter] One of their favourite sons...
[Peter Overton] Was today convicted of sexual assault.
[reporter] Stalking two women.
[reporter] Reaching up a woman's skirt.
[reporter] Repeatedly assaulting ex-girlfriend
over an eight-month period.
Supercars were very concerned not to get dragged into
the football players are treating
their wives and girlfriends and girls like this
and now Supercar drivers are treating girls like this.
[reporter] V8 Supercars says the comment was disgraceful
and completely unacceptable in the sport.
[commentator] Oh!
[commentator] Real aggressive driving.
[Reynolds] They've had other drivers crash cars,
trying to run other drivers over on the track,
effectively using them as a weapon.
[commentator] Get out of the way, get out of the way.
[Reynolds] They've had fights in pit lane, punch ups.
I find that funny,
that I could go and physically hurt someone
and couldn't get that sort of size fine.
Bloody strange isn't it?
But I paid on my credit card,
I like to tell people, and I got Qantas points for it,
and ended up buying like a nice toaster so...
Yeah, it's beautiful. Beautiful toaster.
[Renee] At the Bathurst 1000 I had people abuse me,
and I was spat at, I had death threats
and nothing was ever done to protect me.
Yet a driver, who was a friend
and I thought was trying to be quite funny,
makes a comment that they didn't approve
and Supercars blow it out of proportion.
It made no sense to any of us
because there were so many other things
that they could have been focusing their time on.
It was clearly just all for image
and they just didn't want to be
dragged into all the other drama
that was happening in sports in Australia at that time.
[man] Come my way sweetheart.
[operatic fanfare]
[commentator] It's your ticket to the history books.
No one will ever forget you.
This is the race that means the most.
To lose this race, to mess this up,
well that's a pain that will stay with you
for the rest of your days on this earth.
Get ready for the Bathurst 1000, 2015.
[Renee] It was just non-stop media,
non-stop attention from all angles.
All of a sudden, you go out and you race.
[commentator] The crowd is ready,
the drivers are set.
[Renee] For me it was my time to prove
that I deserve to be there.
[commentator] We are moments away from a start.
[Ray] There was nervousness of don't crash,
don't make a fool of yourself.
[commentator] The drivers unleash.
It's chaos as everyone tries to break free from the pack.
Over the Top of the Mountain,
to the cheering of the fans who await their arrival.
It was going okay until lap sixteen.
[car accelerating]
[car skidding] [car crashing]
[commentator] Oh no, we've got a crash
and it's the Supergirls entry,
Renee Gracie in the wall at Forrest Elbow.
[Smy] For sceptics, lasting sixteen laps into Bathurst
might have been vindication,
oh that wasn't a good decision.
[Renee] Why the hell did that happen?
Why didn't I slow down? 'Cause I was on the brakes like hard.
[commentator] This is the end of the Supergirl's race.
Huge damage. This will require a safety car.
[Renee] If you have to be picked up by a tow truck
and be towed back you don't finish
and I was just like adamant.
I was just like there is no way I'm going back on a tow truck.
[car starting and accelerating]
[commentator] Wow, Gracie's managed
to get it out of the wall. That's incredible.
[Renee] My bonnet was bent so far up
from when I had hit the concrete wall
that I could not see in front of me.
I could see in my rear vision mirror
if I centre in the middle of the road
and just based off my memory of the track,
drove home into the pits, blind.
[man] Won't turn? Steering column must be pretty mangled
after that crash.
I remember feeling stressed, disappointed.
I remember everyone who was sitting in the pits
looking at me like disappointed that I crashed.
[commentator] Simona de Silvestro not happy.
There's no hiding that.
[Renee] It turns out that there was oil at Forrest Elbow
and it was the car in front of me that dropped it.
People started to come back and reassure me
that it wasn't something that I did on my own fault -
to make me feel a little bit better, not that it did.
[commentator] They've been able to fix the car
and the Supergirl's race is back on.
[Smy] They took them to lap 53 to get the car back out.
They just made it for the window to be qualified as finishers.
[commentator] Craig Lowndes takes his sixth triumph
in The Great Race.
[Renee] We finished twenty-first.
We were able to recover
and I think that made it an achievement in itself.
[Renee] After we finished and I went to go to the bathroom,
I saw groups of men.
They were up in like the corporate boxes,
talking and pointing.
Don't you know how to brake? Don't you know how to steer?
Don't you know where the corner is?
And yeah, threw a beer can, a full VB beer can
straight at my head.
[Renee] Sort of like hit like my shoulder, neck, head,
like bounced off me.
I remember just pretending not to look embarrassed
and almost looking like it didn't hit me
and it didn't touch me and just like playing it cool.
Security knew about it, everyone knew about it.
They deemed him as 'not drunk'.
He was still in the corporate boxes above our garage.
He didn't get kicked out.
[reporter] Just sixteen laps in,
heartbreak for the all-female team.
[reporter] Renee Gracie hit a wall at Forrest Elbow.
[reporter] The car was eventually repaired
but the Bathurst dream had been ruined.
[Renee] The whole weekend,
I think it really did some damage to like
my confidence and definitely shifted and changed
the way I think and felt about motorsport in general.
[Renee] Even with the accident
Supercars were still happy with the overall program.
The value of the whole Bathurst event
was 62 million dollars
and the value of Renee and Simona's media
was 22 million dollars.
Through my whole career in motorsport
I got zero dollars and zero cents.
I was fully sponsored
but every cent of it would go back into the racing program.
I didn't get paid to race.
I was broke-broke.
After Bathurst I wanted to be closer to Chris,
closer to the team that I was with
and reset everything with a new team and a new car.
My dad was very against me going down to live with Chris.
[Ray] He was saying to Renee,
your father's not interested in you, your father doesn't,
not interested in your career.
I didn't tell him.
- Oh, didn't ya? - Nah.
So he didn't see you leave with it all?
Nah.
How did you sneak it out? Was he out?
- Put it all in my bag. - Dining out?
No, I just put it all in my bag.
[Renee] I would have done anything to, you know,
be a paid driver.
So if someone was sort of like getting in the way of that
it was just like, okay, I'm not listening to you anymore, next!
And that was Dad, unfortunately.
[Ray] I spent the last six years going Karting,
spending bloody money.
If that's the case - fuck off!
Pretty much how the conversation went.
We've been bloody,
like in each other's pocket for six years almost.
So, yeah, it was, um, it was difficult.
[Renee] I think deep down the passion was really burnt out.
[commentator] And Renee Gracie
loses control of the back end of the car.
She's out of business.
Like, I fucking hate this.
I don't want to be here anymore.
The very last race that I did
it was about halfway through a season.
I think we had about three more races to go.
I got told we've got no money to go to the next round
and then I remember thinking, hmm, that's weird.
We should have X amount of dollars left
based off the sponsorship, you know,
that I thought we were getting.
Dad obviously wasn't in the picture
because I wasn't talking to him.
I had no one to know what to ask.
I think it was just like the nail in the coffin.
The last kick in the guts.
It was my time to
just get the hell out of just motorsport in general.
[Smy] She's replaced by Jordan Boys
with a couple of rounds to go
and in five races, Jordan manages to accrue
more than half the points that Renee did in seventeen.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen
V8 Supercars winners!
[Smy] If you're not at the pointy end all the time
then it's easy to just disappear into oblivion.
[gentle music]
[Renee] I reckon I probably was alone for like six months.
I thought about moving back home
but Dad and I, we still had a very broken
and disconnected relationship still.
It definitely wasn't the same.
A very weird time to realise that - had no one, had nothing.
When racing stopped, pretty much everything stopped.
I realised that I was actually like really depressed
and really just hated myself and hated everybody
and hated my life
because I wasn't actually living a life for me.
I didn't realise how badly I was being controlled
or how badly I was being forced to be this thing
that they were making me out to be.
[camera clicking]
[gentle piano music]
[light switch clicks]
[upbeat music]
[Renee] I think when I realised I could do whatever I want
it quickly felt really good, comfortable, free,
just in control of my own life.
I am doing my first vlog.
When I took over my social medias
and I could actually show like a real side of Renee.
For the first-time people had seen me outside
of like, racing gear.
All of a sudden I'm in a bikini,
so I think that generated a lot of interest quite quickly.
I saw multiple comments, you know,
you should put this on OnlyFans.
I was like, what the hell is this OnlyFans thing?
In Google, I'm like, "What is OnlyFans?", question mark.
And then obviously it all came up.
The one that I watched was about a girl
who was uploading explicit content.
Just bikini photos, basically what I was putting on Instagram.
I was like, oh, I'm already doing that, what do you mean?
Like, people are going to pay for that? Like, that's fine.
Two days later I made an OnlyFans page.
There was really not much thought process
put into it at all, like almost zero.
Gives me something to do,
make a little bit of money on the side,
a couple of hundred bucks a month.
And I was like, oh, I better post a photo
and just like took a photo - post.
It went crazy!
I had my notifications on my phone
and then it was just like ding, ding, ding, ding.
My whole screen was just all with these blue squares
of all these subscribers.
Within the first fifteen minutes
I had like 2,300 people on my OnlyFans.
And they were all paying to be there
so I had all this money coming in as well.
It was, you know, 20, 30, thousand dollars, US.
My first reaction was just - Fuck! What do I do?
Every new subscriber had messaged me,
I had thousands of messages.
Some guys were so blunt and crazy and just be like,
"How much to see pussy?"
Or, "I want to see your butthole, how much?"
Like, they were just straight to the point.
Well it sort of took me by surprise.
So, so many supportive, caring messages from race fans.
Those messages made me feel really good.
I didn't think anyone gave a shit about me.
And I thought, well I should probably go and tell Dad.
[Ray] Yeah, she just borrowed $2,500 from me
to put an exhaust on her Mustang.
Then a couple of weeks later, she said,
"Oh, a few of my fans have said I could join this thing
"and you can make some money out of it."
I said, "Oh yeah, okay."
My idea is just a simple little thing where, you know,
you chat with your fans.
I didn't even bother going to research it.
And then she said,
"Oh, I'll give you the money back for the exhaust."
And I'm thinking,
how much money are you making out of this thing?
[Renee] By this time I was up to like, $80,000.
Like it had just been crazy.
That was just in like a couple of days, essentially.
I was pretty happy because I got my money back
for the bloody exhaust.
Because based on previous history that money was dead.
I was never going to see it again.
[Renee] I was so excited.
I just remember thinking like, I am fucking rich.
Like, because I was so broke.
I had never had that much money in my bank account ever.
She lived all those years racing cars
making nothing, living off one tin of bloody tuna a night,
to all of a sudden having something
that she's in complete and total control of
that's making a motza.
[Ray] So, the transition for her financially
was just incredibly different.
The old accountant in me had to go back to work
and start managing the money.
So Dad made me pay off my Afterpay account.
He made me pay out my car loan
and then I went and bought a house.
[dramatic music]
[Renee] I started to go a bit viral.
[man] When good girls go bad!
Renee Gracie has become a porn star.
[reporter] Creating racy adults only content
on the internet site OnlyFans.
[Renee] There was thousands of articles written about me.
The ex-racing car driver turned porn star.
[man] The twenty-five-year-old
claimed to have made $64,000 in three days.
I didn't know so many people wanted to see me naked.
One thing led to another.
The more articles that got written,
the better my page went.
Then it just blew up.
[photographer] There we go.
Let's start with some portraits.
[Renee] Yep.
[photographer] What do you think?
Love!
- [photographer] Makes sense? - [Renee] Good. Yep.
- [photographer] Okay, cool. - [Renee] Good colour.
[photographer] Okay? Yep, derobe.
[Renee] My evolution was a slow one
and I think that's what aided to my success in OnlyFans.
What I felt uncomfortable doing in the beginning
was being naked, being topless.
[photographer] That's great. Perfect.
Having put that leg forward.
[camera clicking]
[photographer] Rad!
[Renee] So when I shifted from bikini photos,
I moved into lingerie photos.
[gentle upbeat music]
[Renee] A year down the track,
I started to do nudes and started to do my own videos.
It was really just a very slow progression.
I never did anything I wasn't comfortable with.
[Renee] Um, the decision to have sex on camera,
for me it just felt like something
that I was comfortable to do.
It was just like a, yeah, first ever sex video - unlock to see.
That was the making of my page.
I really offered everything from that point on.
My earnings just went through the roof.
Dad was doing my accounts,
so Dad could figure out that I all of a sudden,
I was going, you know, $80,000 a month
and the next month I might have gone up to like 120!
I'm not stupid, I'm not naive.
I'm figuring it there's probably a bit more to it than I know.
He put two and two together and he's like,
"What are you doing?"
Renee then fessed up.
She had to tell me about, kind of,
the concepts of the movies.
It's a bit of an awkward conversation
to have with your dad but, um,
anyway I was sort of just like, uh, I was like,
I'm just happy fucking on film and making all this money Dad,
get over it.
I'm pretty easy.
She's on OnlyFans. She's a porn star.
That's how I describe her.
Then people are so shocked
that they're too scared to ask any more questions.
[photographer] I'm going to count you in.
Stay flat footed and then go to your toes.
Okay, here we go. Three, two, one, go!
[Ray] What is she doing?
She's in complete and total control of her own career.
She's not hurting anybody.
Makes a lot of people happy.
[tense music]
[Renee] The feeling that I got from Supercars was,
don't mention Renee Gracie and Supercars in the same sentence.
They pushed me so hard to be this sex symbol,
this attractive looking girl
that would earn them lots of money.
So it was okay for you to benefit from it
but now you're not getting the millions of dollars
in your back pocket - it's like, oh no, no comment,
I don't want anything to do with it.
So I've basically just been wiped
from the memory of anything Supercars related.
So that is funny and interesting to me.
[gentle music] [birds calling]
[chickens clucking]
[Renee] Being in motorsport for so long
I always felt kind of lonely
and didn't have a lot of friends.
Chickens are the best. Ow!
I was a bit nervous when I started OnlyFans,
about being involved with women,
just having to collaborate with them.
I didn't think anyone would have anything in common with me
and they wouldn't want to be friends with me.
[Tayla] Probably one of the most fun things we've done -
fully nude hot air ballooning over the Gold Coast
with a champagne breakfast.
Oh yeah, fucking, that was probably one of the best ones.
[Renee] I started realising that these girls were intelligent,
they were educated.
Everything that I had been told
of what these girls were like, was the opposite.
- What was that car you had? - Renee] The AMG.
She had an AMG and we drove somewhere
and she drove really fast and it was really scary.
[Renee] I drove - I went to 80! I didn't...
It felt like 3000!
[both laughing]
[Renee] Some of like my best friendships
are because of girls in OnlyFans,
which I find quite funny because
I never thought that that would be the case.
Hi guys, welcome to my 'live'.
Today I have a very special guest.
My best friend, Tayla.
Today we are doing a 'spin the wheel'.
We've got 'kissing', 'name on chest', 'twerking',
'topless pictures' and a 'custom video' with Tayla and I.
Yeah!
- We're spinning for Daniel. - [Tayla] Go!
[both] Kissing!
[Renee] I've done stuff with multiple girls before
and it's just been this very fluid communication.
I'm going to do this to you, do I have your consent?
I feel like with guys everything's like rough
and like it's all like fuck, heavy breathing
and like just men being men.
[Tayla] 'Name on chest'.
[Renee] It's just a really nice environment I find with women.
[Tayla] Steve's fighting for real estate.
Steve really likes shoulders.
[Renee] OnlyFans flipped the industry on its head
and gave porn stars a lot more control
over the content that they were appearing in.
It's all me. It's no one else.
Women are in control of this industry.
[both laughing]
[Renee] So this is where the magic happens.
I've got lingerie sets, props, lights.
My first draw and the most important draw
is my dildo draw.
These are the essentials for my day-to-day work roster.
And I have accumulated a very interesting array of dildos.
I never thought I would have a draw like this but here we are.
I've got my old race suits.
Um, from when I used to race at the Bathurst 1000.
It's just nice to have them.
[Renee] Starting my OnlyFans,
it was probably one of the best things
to have ever happened to me, to be honest.
But, all of the stress and pressure from my weight
and how I looked through my whole career in motorsport...
It just sort of had effects later on, um, in life for me.
I had lipo on my chin, lipo on my back,
lipo on my arms, lipo on my belly.
I just felt that I had this unwritten rule
that I finally had the opportunity
to make myself look the way that I had been told
I should have looked for so long.
So I just went and did it.
So I got my boobs done, twice.
Had two Brazilian butt lifts,
and then I have had lots of Botox in my face as well,
to the point where it doesn't move.
All of a sudden I, I think it like all caught up with me.
[pensive electronic music]
[Renee] I need to face my past.
[birds calling]
[truck revving]
[hand brake clicking]
What's this one?
None of those.
You don't want to be looking at any school photos.
[Ray] Well it's been a long time since
I've looked at any of these.
[Renee] My mum used to make me scrapbook
and then I just did it for fun.
That's when we got hooked.
My only skill, pouring petrol in.
[Renee] Oh you couldn't even do that properly sometimes.
[Ray chuckling]
[Ray] We used to pinch a day off school,
and we would just do lap, after lap, after lap, after lap.
[Ray] When that dream evaporated
I always saw it as a missed opportunity.
I just could see that she was good at it.
[Ray] All your Karting bibles. I'd forgotten about these.
So after every session
you'd go around and write your description of the,
of what happened on the track.
[Renee] Every single corner of every single lap I would review.
So corner three -
"I feel like I have to slow the Kart right up to turn in,
"and to wait to get on the gas at the right time."
And the mid corner - "I feel if I get the entry right,
"I should be able to get on the gas at the apex.
"Get it perfect!"
[funky music]
[truck accelerating]
[Renee] If I was to go back,
the main thing would be to be in control.
To return on my terms, not their terms.
To see how the results would be
and to see how much better it could be,
is one of the main drivers.
[phone dialling]
Oh hello, this is Renee Gracie...
Oh hi, it's Renee Gracie...
Renee Gracie here...
I'm just looking for Robert from the Daily Mail please.
I was wondering if I could get in touch
with Steve from Sports A.U. please.
Kate from The Project please.
Yes, so I am planning a return to motorsport.
I think it's been long enough,
between when I was in a car last to now...
...my own circumstances...
[Renee] I feel like there's no better way
than the buy my own team and return!
[TV presenter] And now Australia's
first female Supercar driver
is plotting her big return to racing.
In fact she wants to buy the whole team.
Yeah, well I've got a bit of spare money sitting around.
[Sara Harris] Are you aiming for Bathurst?
[Renee] Yeah. Yep. They do wildcard entries.
So I thought, why not do it again?
I feel like it's just a bit of a redemption to re-join Supercars.
Do it at the 1000.
[Smy] You don't just get into Supercars.
[man] She delusionally thinks that because of her profile,
Supercars are just going to, you know, thumbs up.
Come on, Renee.
[Smy] You can't just be a wildcard.
I don't really watch the racing anymore.
It's a little bit boring. It's flat, very repetitive.
Motorsport isn't a friendly sport for women in general,
let alone women doing what I'm doing.
A lot of people are going to make it difficult
for me to come back in.
[phone ringing]
Hello, Renee Gracie speaking.
[Smy] Supercars isn't going to help you
if you're super critical of them...
...uh, either.
I think it needs some spice.
A female racing car driver who's done porn,
I think that'll bring lots of eyes to the TV.
[man] It's just a publicity stunt.
It's probably going to sell her more, um, OnlyFans.
If I can get back to Bathurst
I'll be bringing the pussywagon back out, that's for sure.
[photographer] That's great, perfect.
Ten.
[Renee] It's very important to have eyes on the story.
It's quite easy to sort of shut it down in the background.
It's definitely keeping them honest
and holding them accountable for what they do.
The 1000 was a point of my career
that I think made and broke me all at the same time.
So I think there's a bit of redemption,
of going back into the 1000.
To show and prove that I can do it
and be a successful racing car driver.
What ya doing?
[tense music]
"Former Supercar driver, Renee Gracie,
"was hoping to make her comeback in this year's Bathurst 1000,
"but it seems the sport's governing body isn't buying it,
"branding her move a publicity stunt.
"She is just using the sport to sell more videos.
"It's not even worth commenting on
"because it's just not going to happen."
Burns a little fire inside of me to prove a point
and prove them wrong.
[Renee] Called Dad up and I was like,
we need to work out how we get back into the Bathurst 1000.
He's just like who are we going to get for a manager?
I was like, isn't that obvious?
[funky hip-hop music]
You get her out on the track, and you can do it.
Think of the fun we'll have. Alright, done.
[Ray] Moving back this time,
it was important she be in total control of everything.
My job was to help her do that,
to make sure that we go with somebody we can trust.
How on earth am I going to go racing again?
[Renee] But what else is there that's not Supercar
or something that has a chance to leapfrog you
into the Bathurst 1000?
My initial first thoughts was to go back into Porsche.
[Renee] I had many people
who would answer my phone calls and go,
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
Okay, that's great.
[Renee] And then two weeks later
they're not returning my phone calls
and they've just like completely ghosted me.
I did hear that there were other teams saying,
"Don't let her back in here and that'd be a disgrace."
And that's when things started to get
a little bit tense and tricky.
[phone chimes]
[Renee] Then I got a text message from the GT Series.
[cars roaring]
[narrator] The GT World Challenge features
some of the most extreme race cars in the world.
Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes AMG,
and the GT World Challenge
is racing circuits across the globe.
[Renee] It's very exciting.
It's a unique category that's coming into Australia.
We started to chat with the GT guys
and they basically said,
"We want you and we want to support you.
"What can we do to help you?
"It has a chance to leapfrog you into a wildcard at Bathurst."
Then I thought of Mark Griffith.
[Renee] Griffo is one of the main team owners
on the GT Series.
He races cars himself.
This is what GT racing's all about. Cool cars.
[Griffith] Renee's dad had already told me
that she couldn't go and race in some of the other places.
They either didn't want her or it didn't fit
or they're just dickheads -
which is a bit disappointing.
A bit narrow minded in this day and age as well.
And he rang me and said,
"So can Renee run a GT car and be with you?"
And the answer was, "Yes."
We're going to get you into GT 3.
[Griffith] We set some standard ground rules that said,
she's just there to race cars,
we don't go to OnlyFans parties or any of that.
Whether they have them or not I don't know, but,
if you find out you let us know because we're not going.
[Renee] My original plan to return,
I just was thinking like the only way I'm going to do this
is if I just buy my own bloody car,
if I buy my own race team.
And then all of a sudden, the right opportunity arose.
I've got a sponsor on board
and you might have heard of them before.
[upbeat music]
[Renee] It's not me putting in any money to go racing,
they've actually given me a budget and money,
to do the full series.
[Griffith] Once the green light got clicked
we needed to be in Perth in two weeks time.
[Renee] In the last six months I've trained really hard,
I've lost twelve kilos.
I'm feeling strong and I'm feeling fit.
Yeah, I think I'm ready.
[Renee] Ugh!
"Unfortunately we are unable to accommodate
"external filming.
"We wish you the best with your documentary project. Regards."
[Renee] The first round is the Supercar round.
That means they have control of the situation.
I just think it's such crap.
I've done media at Supercar events before.
I did it for six years of my life.
I knew that they would probably try and control the situation
and I feel like that's probably how they're going to be
all year, is it's just going to be, "No".
["Are You Flirting With Me" by OzzySynthMaster playing]
âª Are you flirting with me âª
âª Are you in love with me âª
âª Are you flirting âª
âª 'Cause it ain't working âª
âª Are you flirting with me âª
âª Are you in love with me âª
âª Are you flirting âª
âª 'Cause it ain't working âª
âª Are you flirting 'Cause it ain't working âª
[alarm bell chiming]
[alarm stops]
- [Ray] Morning. - Hi Dad.
[Renee] Today is race day.
This is the first time that I'm going to be in this race car.
I only saw it for the first time the other day.
I haven't driven it. I haven't even started it.
I feel like everyone
just always expects me to be slow and crash.
[Ray] It's been a while too.
- [Renee] It's been so long... - [Ray] It's been six years
since you've been in a car this fast.
[Renee] Everyone thinks that I always used to be shit
when I used to race.
How could I possibly come back and be good? So...
I think deep down though,
it applies a lot of pressure to Renee to get a result.
Pressure to not look bad.
You've just got to ignore that and stick to your own plan.
[Renee] Yeah, we'll see if we can get in.
I don't know about your camera but we'll soon find out.
[Ray] Yeah, this is the entry gate.
[Renee] I might - do we just pull over here?
[Ray] Just pull to the side.
[Ray] Unwire us and unplug us.
[Renee] Yeah.
[announcer] Race 1 in round 2
of GT World Challenge, Australia.
[Ruggiero] I mean, I was even watching
a first round with Renee
and I was just waiting to see Renee's car on, on the broadcast
and, um, funnily enough I didn't see her very much,
and I'm wondering why.
[Renee] I've heard whispers that there was a directive handed out
to anyone who had a camera in their hand
to not show me.
[cars roaring] [birds calling]
[announcer] It's a very good morning here
at the Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit,
as you can see right now...
[Renee] We are at the Shannons SpeedSeries round
at Phillip Island.
From the weekend,
I expect to and hope to finish.
That's the main thing.
We were obviously at Perth, um, only two weeks ago.
I stayed clean, I didn't crash.
But the track's low risk in Perth.
It's going to be pretty hectic around here
because it's so fast paced.
Oh, one thing I do actually want to do, is I want to stretch.
Limber up.
So I've already done a hundred push ups
and a four mile jog this morning. Yeah.
I wanted to do it before you all got here.
I didn't want to, you know, show anyone up.
[exhaling]
[Griffith] You're four minutes late.
[Renee] Right.
[Renee] I'd never driven a GT car ever, before Perth.
I'm still learning the car.
There's a lot of media attention,
lots of people obviously watching and looking.
What if I did crash?
All I want to do is prove myself on the track.
- [Griffith] Just have fun. - [Renee] Thanks.
[crew] Okay, when you're ready.
[crew] Comfortable?
[crew] Cool.
Let's go ahead and turn the main on.
[crew] And then ignition.
[crew] Oh okay, but I think we need the ignition on.
[crew] So obviously on and off the brakes,
on and off the brakes.
And it's not so much as a build-up, like a Supercar.
It's just on it.
That's amazing.
That's even more than what I'm after.
So you can do it. Okay?
We're about five minutes off, okay.
- So I'll give you some... - Awesome.
[crew] Are you alright?
[tense music]
[crew chattering]
[crew] Always turns right going out of the garage.
[cars revving]
[cars roaring]
[commentator] GT World Challenge, Australia.
An hour of racing here at Phillip Island today.
Nice start, all bunched up and ready to be unleashed
on a place that is perfect for them.
[commentator] We jump on board with Renee Gracie,
she's currently scored in thirteenth outright.
Just in front is Darren Currie.
It's a good little fight.
[commentator] Goes for the inside.
[commentator] Nice pass. Got the job done.
[commentator] Puts that pressure on Samadi.
[commentator] Yep, looks like Renee
takes a position there on, on Samadhi there.
So a nice clean move and we've got - they are off!
He must not be able to handle getting beaten by a girl.
[commentator] Worth noting,
it looks like Renee Gracie nearly in the top ten.
Older generation Audi. Well done.
Renee is actually positioned eleventh outright
at the moment.
[crew] She's holding her own in a lesser model car.
[crew] She's lapping the car ahead of her.
[Griffith] She's surprising all of us.
[commentator] Last lap of the race.
[commentator] Renee Gracie pleading for class.
She's been out of racing for about seven years.
What a complete performance this has been.
[commentator] A very exciting finish to this race.
The final turn. Checkered flag.
Renee Gracie wins her class.
I think I nailed it pretty good for the first time.
- [crew] Well done. - Yeah, yeah.
[Griffith] He and I were sitting here with smiles on our faces.
It was good.
Do you want to get a photo?
Cheese!
[cars roaring] [operatic music]
[commentator] The roar of engines fills the grandstand
here at Sydney Motorsport Park.
[commentator] And here we go, they'll run wheel to wheel.
[commentator] Gracie ahead of him.
[Renee] In every other race I get better and better
and better and better.
[commentator] Renee Gracie just off the back of this group
and closing.
[crew] She's been consistent, hasn't made any mistakes,
great with her feedback.
I think she's just going to get quicker and quicker
and further up the pack.
[Renee] I just fell in love with it.
I was just having a ball going racing.
As Renee started winning races,
all of a sudden we're sitting there thinking,
you could nearly win this Championship.
[Griffith] She's taken on a car she'd never driven,
in a category she'd never been in.
She's sort of mastered it.
[man] The OnlyFans sponsorship -
Renee isn't the best role model.
Hello, how are you?
[man] For girls who want to get into racing.
[Renee] Cheese!
[man] As for Renee continuing on
with her business adventures while she's in the sport,
it kind of sends the wrong message.
[reporter] The idea of a Bathurst reboot
reportedly stalling.
Publicly, Supercars says it doesn't discriminate.
But there are claims that privately
officials are dubbing the situation 'The Gracie Circus'.
[Renee] People always criticise me.
It really doesn't matter what I do.
[Griffith] Hey let me see who's driving.
- Oh you! - Oh shit!
[Renee] But I find myself six years later, I'm back racing,
it's just so much fun
and I've just loved every second of it.
That makes me really not care about anyone else's opinion
and as long as I'm happy that's all that matters to me.
[commentator] And away they go.
[Renee] I did a GT4 Round,
so it's basically the one below GT3.
[commentator] Renee Gracie's already picked off
quite a few competitors.
She's now got Karl B absolutely in her sight.
Looks to the outside.
Good on her, she's switching it up.
She's not just following the leader through,
she's trying a different line.
[commentator] Ooh, there's something gone wrong
with Gracie there.
[Griffith] We got to the car when she came into the pits.
Opened the door thing and she's about to launch
and out of her mouth came, "I can't thank you enough.
"That's the best fucking fun I've ever had in a race car."
[commentator] Gracie gets underway again.
Past the speedcafe.com car.
There's, uh, Paul Morris there looking on.
[commentator] Have a look at this, Renee Gracie in the 181.
Up into fifth position.
[Griffith] She's come from last.
She's driven through the pack to fourth outright.
[commentator] Checkered flag is out, Renee Gracie fourth.
It was my best weekend in my motorsporting career ever.
It was honestly probably one of the best weekends of my life.
[Griffith] As we stand here now
she's won eight from eight races.
So no matter what they all say, guess what?
Renee's back.
Now I just shake it and spray everyone.
I have the wildcard nomination form in front of me
for Supercars.
I am getting ready to apply.
The whole return was to do a series
to show that I'm quick and I want to return to the 1000.
I actually have a lot of respect for her
to come back in.
Nothing but mad respect for her.
Now that I've done the running that I've done
in the GT Series - winning races.
So I would have enough Super License points to apply.
She'll have a Super License.
Nothing should be stopping her competing in the Supercars.
Entry fees for the wildcard event is $50,000.
"Provide evidence that the applicant has financial capacity
"to operate a wildcard."
Tick, tick, tick, tick.
"Outline a proposed marketing and PR strategy
"for the wildcard,
"including assisting Supercars with local and national media."
What she will do is she will bring people to the sport.
Because back in the day I used to love watching
all the big personalities of our sport.
There's no one the fans can really warm to or like
because it's all quite sanitised.
If you want to be on TV
and you want an audience, you need entertainment.
[Renee] We well and truly meet this wildcard requirement,
like hands down, not even a question,
and I've done it before and I know that I can do it again.
The past two years has been leading to this day.
To get to this point. I am ready for it.
[Renee] I'm on my way to Griffo's,
he called me and told me that he has some news
about attaching me to a team for the Bathurst 1000.
I've got a really good feeling about it.
[Griffith] So last week, without you sort of knowing fully.
[Renee] Hmm...
I spoke to a couple of V8 Supercar teams that I know well,
and I just asked the question.
If there was a possibility of a wildcard thing, would...
And both of them were interested.
Okay.
[Griffith] Then they came back to me and said,
they've spoken to V8 and they've said, "No way".
They would never give you a license back.
Yeah...
[Renee] So the teams agreed but Supercars...
[Griffith] Yes, teams agreed. Supercars didn't.
Yep...
It's done. It's all over.
It's their show. They can do it.
[Griffith] With all that in mind.
Yep.
[Griffith] I think GT racing is the better thing for you anyway.
Yep.
[audio distorts and fades]
[gentle music]
[birds calling]
[Renee] There was a lot of reasons why
I wanted to return to the 1000.
I really felt that within myself if I had the best of everything
I really could have proved myself.
It was the perfect time to finally come back,
and take a stand.
But fighting an industry that has power, that has money,
that has the strength to fight back and, you know,
you're just a small fish.
It's, it's virtually impossible.
I wanted to return to make an industry and a sport
that is so set in its ways, change its ways.
But it's almost impossible to get through or to break it.
There's literally nothing that I can do about it.
[commentator] Great battles, fierce performance
and cementing yourself in the history books.
Brace yourself Australia for another Bathurst 1000.
[muffled commentary]
[Renee] Simona de Silvestro was chosen
for the wildcard entry at Bathurst.
She's the only girl to race since we raced.
[commentator] But oh no, we've got drama
on the Top of the Mountain.
Oh, he hits the back of Simona de Silvestro's car
and she's been spun around off the track.
I'm not sure that was a legal move.
[Renee] Ooh, it's clearly the exact same as when I left.
[Renee] On the other side,
the GT offered basically everything and anything
that, um, Supercars never offered.
I have had so much fun this year - GT racing.
It's to the point where it's like, why would I,
why would I go back?
Fuck Supercars!
[funky music]
[Renee] We are at Queensland Raceway.
The pressure is on for the Championship.
All she has to do today is finish.
She finishes this, she's going to tie this Championship up
and be a title holder.
And she'll be the first girl to do it. Yep.
This is a track where tyres explode
and like rupture quite often.
They just go bang and cause lots of damage
because you're going like kilometres an hour
through a corner. You can crash.
[Renee] There's always a chance you won't finish
and that's motorsport.
It could be mechanical, someone could take you out.
But I want to do this.
I want to win the Championship.
[engine starting]
[car accelerating]
[Renee] I really, really want this.
[steady breathing]
[commentator] Away we go.
Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia.
Look at them into one!
Tander, bit of a contact there.
Game on!
[commentator] Banging doors, side by side,
still on the exit of Turn 2.
[commentator] You can see the cars really bouncing around
on the way into Turn 1.
Picking up a little bit of dust and dirt and salt.
[commentator] Renee Gracie, leading class.
Remember, eyeing up the title.
Alright, Abbie's come off the road
and Ross Poulakis spun as well, that's Turn 1.
[Ray] Oooh...
[commentator] Fires across to the infield.
That is terrifying.
[commentator] Cars moving around on cold tyres.
It is hot and slick out there
so could it be affecting their balance.
Oh, another wild moment.
[Griffiths] We're a little nervous at the moment.
[commentator] Oh yeah. Oh nasty incident there...
[commentator] Riding on board with Renee Gracie at the moment,
chasing down another car.
[Tayla] Come on, Renee.
Come on, get up on the inside of him.
[Ray] She's got him right in that corner.
She's held him through that turn.
Now she's got to get him on the straight again.
Hold him on the straight.
I was trying to understand what he was saying.
I was doing this, "Yes, the straight, yes."
[Commentator] Oh, another puff of dusk on the exit of Turn 5.
Oh God.
[commentator] I think we have an Audi off.
[commentator] Let's look here on the replay Moff.
[commentator] Oh so it was through Turn 6.
[roaring]
[commentator] A minute, forty-five to go.
We're running out of laps. Race to the finish.
[commentator] It's just a matter of finishing
and she has not put a foot wrong so far in this race.
[commentator] Oh, off he goes.
Come on, Renee.
[commentator] Heading to the checkered flag,
the final one of the weekend.
Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia.
[commentator] Takes the checker!
[crowd cheering and applauding]
Oh, she's going to be fucking happy.
[commentator] An Australian title coming her way
after that result and a great reflection of the season
that she's had.
That's cool, that's really cool.
That's a Championship all locked up, done and dusted.
Yep.
[reporter] The title for the Championship.
Renee, congratulations. How's that sit with you?
Thank you. Yeah, it's, uh, surreal.
I don't think it's sunk in yet.
I think it's deserving for Griffo, the boys,
everyone who's helped me this year
and taken me under his wing
and I can't return it any other way except maybe a Championship.
- I'm going to go to the podium. - It's already done.
Oh shit! Maybe they can wait for me.
Sorry I had to do hair and makeup.
[crew] Just put your suit on for the podium.
Oh shit. See everyone's rushing me.
Didn't even get to straighten my hair.
Bloody stitch up.
[announcer] Now on to the trophy class.
Winner in the trophy class, Renee Gracie!
Yes!
[Renee] I definitely think I've reignited
what I already knew that I had.
And I've just loved every second of it.
Thanks guys. It's all yours. Have a swig.
[Renee] Now naturally I just can't stop thinking about
next year and the year after and the year after.
[Tayla] Yay!
[Renee] The change for women will have to come from time.
[Ray] I've had more hugs today than I've had in two years.
[Renee] All the old school heads of departments,
time will slowly flush all of them out
and it will bring through new generations.
They'll have to retire,
they can't keep working when they're eighty.
Really great on Turn 2.
[all laughing]
[Ray] As you would bloody know.
[Ray] There was times in Go Karting
that were just spectacular.
There was times in Porsche that were spectacular.
But now she's achieved what I believe
she was always capable of.
Winning.
No tissues.
Bloody hell.
It's ridiculous.
Thank God you're not going to put this on film
because no one will believe you.
It's about Renee.
[upbeat music]