Mount Panorama Bathurst

It was great to see a full range of racing at Mount Panorama over the Easter break, and the first meeting with unlimited crowds after the Covid restrictions.

For those not familiar, Mount Panorama is just outside Bathurst, which is 200 kms west of Sydney. The circuit is 6.2 kms long, and there is 174 metres between its highest and lowest points
.The circuit is a public road with residences around much of it. It is limited by an Act of Parliament to only a few meetings a year.
It's first car race meeting was the 1938 Australian Grand Prix. It is regarded by many as the spiritual home of motor racing in Australia, and by many as the best race circuit in Australia.

The main event this year was the Bathurst 6 hours for production cars. It had a field of 59 cars. The winner was Shane Van Gisbergen with unknowns Shane Smollen and Rob Rubis in a BMW M4. The first four cars were BMWs with a Mustang in 5th.

In winning Van Gisbergen became only the second driver (after Paul Morris) to win the Bathurst holy grail of the Bathurst 1000, the Bathurst 12 hours and the Bathurst 6 hour.

Their were big fields in most supporting events:
The largest was 55 cars in the Hyundai Excel race. This category would have to be the most popular in Australia for participants.
There were 47 cars in the Historic Touring race.
There were also races for TCR, Trans Am, Radicals and GT.

Here are some fabulous photos to paint the scene:
http://www.theraceto...-sunday-action/

Thank you for posting this. I wish I had been there! Bathurst is, I find, a pleasant town and the circuit is certainly challenging with its altitude changes, not much room for error and the risk of errant marsupials on the track. The weather over the weekend looked perfect too. I am sure I missed a good weekend.

I would have watched it, maybe even spectated, but working bee at home put paid to either.  Dipster, ad sheer speed to that list!  Sounds like a great weekend, where I am ( a two hour drive south of Bathurst) it was perfect autumn weather, which would have been the icing on the cake as a speccie!

 

Terry, those photos are a disgrace to a professional website.  Subject matter, composition great, colour totally RS.  I don't understand how they could get it so wrong.  I won't brag (much), but even I could have done a LOT better     (and in case you are wondering, my monitor is colour corrected).

Mount Panorama has been on my bucket list since the days of the Falcons and Torana's in the late seventies when I read about it in Autosport and saw it I believe on World of Sport, either that or Grandstand. Either way hopefully when I retire in a couple of years I shall find the way from Blighty, are there any regular direct car carrying boats to Oz from Vladivostock I wonder ?   

Second the comment about the highly saturated colours in the pics...

 

No mention, Terry, about the demonstration of the S5000?

 

 

No mention, Terry, about the demonstration of the S5000?

 

S5000 gets first hot laps at Mount Panorama - Speedcafe

https://www.speedcaf...avourite-flick/

It was great to see a full range of racing at Mount Panorama over the Easter break, and the first meeting with unlimited crowds after the Covid restrictions.

For those not familiar, Mount Panorama is just outside Bathurst, which is 200 kms west of Sydney. The circuit is 6.2 kms long, and there is 174 metres between its highest and lowest points
.The circuit is a public road with residences around much of it. It is limited by an Act of Parliament to only a few meetings a year.
It's first car race meeting was the 1938 Australian Grand Prix. It is regarded by many as the spiritual home of motor racing in Australia, and by many as the best race circuit in Australia.

The main event this year was the Bathurst 6 hours for production cars. It had a field of 59 cars. The winner was Shane Van Gisbergen with unknowns Shane Smollen and Rob Rubis in a BMW M4. The first four cars were BMWs with a Mustang in 5th.

In winning Van Gisbergen became only the second driver (after Paul Morris) to win the Bathurst holy grail of the Bathurst 1000, the Bathurst 12 hours and the Bathurst 6 hour.

Their were big fields in most supporting events:
The largest was 55 cars in the Hyundai Excel race. This category would have to be the most popular in Australia for participants.
There were 47 cars in the Historic Touring race.
There were also races for TCR, Trans Am, Radicals and GT.

Here are some fabulous photos to paint the scene:
http://www.theraceto...-sunday-action/

There was like all venues crowd limits. Far less than a football match around a 6km boundary!

It’s not cheap to compete in the 6 hour race.

 

The entry fee per car is $8,470.

Sadly the Bathurst 6 hour seems to have become ultra professional now with some big name drivers and teams with a lot of kit competing. 

 

I went to the two ARG events in Tassie back in January. Both were excellent with a wide of variety of different categories. Great value for money and good racing with support for local categories. Unlike a Supercars event where you see 3 categories of the same cars running...

 

The support categories at Bathurst were marred with the usual amateur driver (grass roots categories) at Bathurst problem of red flags which impacted heavily on track time.