A brief appearance from Skippy during a practice session for the Bathurst 1000 on Thursday has prompted a call for the circuit to be fully fenced.
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The session, which was the fifth of the day and the first for the Supercars category, had to be red flagged by race control due to “wildlife” at the top of the Mount.
The red flag came out at around 10.10am, with 23 minutes remaining in the session.
Cars were able to return to the track just under 10 minutes later, when race control had declared it safe again.
Despite efforts from Bathurst Regional Council to limit access over the years, kangaroos have continue to find ways onto the circuit.
At last year's Bathurst 1000, a kangaroo was seen bounding up Mountain Straight during lap 88 of the Great Race, prompting a safety car.
Several years prior to that, in 2013, Todd Kelly and David Russell's race ended on lap 20 when their Nissan Altima collided with a kangaroo that had made its way onto the circuit.
Council's director of Engineering Services, Darren Sturgiss, said there is fencing in place that aims to stop kangaroos getting onto the circuit during races and it is mostly effective.
"Council’s management of kangaroos at Mount Panorama during major events includes a mix of permanent and temporary fencing around sections of the circuit and extensive monitoring of animal movements," he said.
"This strategy, which is regularly reviewed, is proving to be successful with a very low number of incidents of kangaroos on the track during operational times at recent major events staged at Mount Panorama."
Mr Sturgiss said council had no plans to cull kangaroos, a suggestion that has been made multiple times.
After last year’s incident, councillor Warren Aubin called for a solution before a driver was injured or killed.
Twelves months later, his opinion hasn’t changed.
He said council needs to do more and, if culling wasn’t an option, then more fencing had to be installed to both protect drivers and ensure that the race could keep being held.
“The problem isn’t going to go away until we either eradicate the kangaroos or fully fence the track,” he said, suggesting high fencing that curves to prevent kangaroos jumping over.
“I think that would be a more cost-effective way of doing it, to fully fence the track.
“And I’m going to be pushing for that from now on.”
