Pure racing: Overtaking class on Mount Panorama.

Chris Walsham/Facebook

Some of the best racing you never hear anything about.

Fast, new cars are glamorous and exciting but even Saint Ayrton said the best, purest racing he ever did was as an amateur.

So you probably seen Sabine "Queen of the Ring" Schmitz passing a spectacular number of cars in a VLN race  before.   Amazing stuff but the (hopefully) future Top Gear host is a full time professional,  driving the latest model from Porsche, prepared by a very experienced team, on a track she literally grew up driving on.

With that in mind,  I give you Joseph Lethal, killing it at a support race for the 2016 Bathurst 12 hours.    Lenthall built and prepared his first gen RX7 and this was his first time racing on the mountain course!
.
Couple of things jump out:  

Very smooth, cool driving.

Love the dog leg box and how the engine seemingly revs to 4 million rpm.

That car is hooked up.

Damn, the track is narrow,  makes passing at the Nurburgring seem simple.

So why did Joseph start 49th anyway ?  

“Last weekend, I travelled to Bathurst to race at Mount Panorama for the first time. After walking the track and being told where not to stick it into the fence, I came back to a prepared car thanks to my crew.

“Practice was great and we finished P14 out of a 61- car field. Qualifying was also good, with another P14 and some time left in the car.

“I got a woeful start in race 1 and dropped back to about 18th. After making my way past a few cars, the alternator belt flicked off and the car stopped coming out of turn 3. Unfortunately, between myself and the marshals, we then badly bent the front of the car while trying to load it on the truck.

“Enter my crew again, who through a drill, hammer, cable ties and race tape straightened the front and got the car ready for Race 2. I started 49th and around the last corner; eventually I finished 15th with a straight and running car.

“I can now say that I have raced my Mazda at Bathurst and it was bloody fantastic.”

Pure racing.

Enjoy it

(tx to Gordon Mellis and Autoaction.com.au)

Bathurst Onboard with Six GoPros

Because 6 GoPros are always better than one!

Around Mount Panorama onboard with James Courtney of Holden Racing ahead of this week end's Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.

Live stream HERE

Ute Mountain

Australians pioneered on-board camera technology so you expect some great angles to catch all the pushing an shoving amongst the (insert Joe Pesci's voice in My Cousin Vinny) ...utes

Masters on the Mountain

Jim Richards in his Ford Falcom Sprint across the top of the mountain in the Muscle Car Masters race at Mount Panorama, Bathurst Photo: Sean Neil/Flickr

Fresh from Mount Panorama, Camaros and Monaros and Falcons and...Carreras??

Axis of Wayback: Volvo 240 Turbo vs BMW 635 CSi

It was Brick vs Shark at the 1985 Bathurst 1000....

Jenson Button smokes Mt. Panorama

In one of those ultimately meaningless but still awesome events, Mclaren ran their F1 car on the famed Bathurst/Mt. Panorama track today.
What makes this cool is it gives a tangible measure of a Formula 1 cars performance: presumably driving well within himself, Jenson Button pulled off an unofficial 1:48 sec lap. Compare that with the already blistering fast qualifying times for the V8 Supercars driving 11/10th and tuned specifically for the track, they group about the 2:07 mark. Now that's impressive.

I'm sure a nice polished video will be released soon, in the meantime, youtube offers some fan clips (after the jump) and a news report





.t

What a lap!

I found this clip on Joe Saward's blog. Tom Walkinshaw was not only team boss but took no prisoners behind the wheel. Check out how he put this Jaguar XJ-S on pole for the 1985 Bathurst 1000 with this mindblowing lap. Notice how back then the course was lined with unprotected trees, especially on the very fast downhill section, insane!
Could you picture Luca di Montezemolo doing that?

2010 Supercheap Bathurst 1000

The annual dodging of the kangaroos on Mt. Panorama. Enjoy. Thanks to Ruben D'Arco for the video tips!



Start and huge crash on the fastest part of the track



After the Jump: laps 1 to 52 and more...


race highlights



Laps 1 to 52



Some of the best camera coverage in all of motorsport



RACE REPORT on Motorsport.com

2009 Bathurst 1000 Highlights

300 km/h side by side on a track that is maybe 3 cars wide. About 12 minutes of highlights including the restart for the final 3 laps. Time well spent.




end of post

Thunder on the Mountain, the 2009 Bathurst 1000 Shootout.

The Bathurst 1000, one of the world's most incredible races. Australian V8 Supercars are a mix of golden era DTM and what NASCAR could be if it wasn't afraid to turn right more often. The Mount Panorama circuit is unique and has got to be one of the scariest tracks on the planet. These guys are all over it with 100% commitment, millimiters from the concrete walls, it's just amazing.

All of this makes for a great show and the way the Australians cover this race is amazing. Australian TV was the first to incorporate onboard cameras and have developed and exported the technology ever since, they are masters at it. A motorhead's delight they have cameras everywhere, even on the car's suspensions, other racing series should study and learn.

So here is the complete top ten qualifying shootout divided by driver and continued after the jump.

It takes some nerve...

It takes a lot of nerve to race with a name like Stig Richards.

But perhaps it takes even more nerve to race a Caterham without a full cage, on the Mount Panorama track in Bathurst, on slicks, in the rain.

Aussie Stiggy here gets a bad start but stick around, he does OK in the end!

Stig writes:

"If you live in a drought affected area I think we have a solution. Gather around 30 Clubman cars and organise a race.

Just as we head out to the grid the predictive powers of the Bureau of Meteorology will collapse, clouds will gather like a scene from a sci-fi movie and as the lights go green the heavens will open, reaching the ground about two minutes later.

We will be on slicks, have had next to no experience of the track but rest assured we will enjoy ourselves immensely.

In this race I made the wrong decision at turn one and didn't have the momentum or power to keep my place up Mountain Straight.

I chopped out a couple of laps in the middle but essentially the video starts with me going backwards and then follows my quest to regain some spots.

Enjoy

Stig"

Catch more of "Stig Richards" here

2008 Bathurst 1000 Part 3: the Race

The final instalment of of our Bathurst epic starts with a circuit walk with Neil Compton, a former driver and now commetator with Australia's 7 Sport. The broadcast coverage of this race is simply fenomenal, everything from cameras inside th cars to Helicopters chasing racers down the mountain...just great. And we have to thank Darcy in Australia for making these clips available to the rest of the world.
After the jump, the final 12 laps of the race, a final strint from behind the safety car.







Care to have a go at the Mountain yourself? It's possible if not exactly convenient for most:
Drive Bathurst.com
And of course you could enter the Bathurst 12 hour race for Showroom stock cars too!

2008 Bathurst 1000 Part 2: Shootout

C'mon how can you not love a series that has drivers with names like "Gaaath Teendah" and Jason Bargwanna?

Here is the top ten shootout....balls out by yourself on the mountain. More than you can possibly want, enjoy.





The others are after the jump:

2008 Bathurst 1000 Part 1

The Bathurst 1000, Thunder on the Mountain from the land where men are men and kangoroos run scared. The 1000 Km race on the Mount Panorama rollercoaster, a track which makes the Nürburgring look reasonably safe, belongs among motorsports top ironman events along with LeMans, Indy, Daytona and the Nürburgring 24hours.

This is NASCAR done right: an entertaining mix of antidiluvian engine technology keeping costs relatively low while producing the wonderful sound we all love and proper racing, with turns and braking zones. Combine that with a reasonable 3000lbs weight and you have something truly exciting....
Other cost cutting measures include spec suspension layout (front double wishbones, rear live axle with Watts linkage) and a standard sequential transmission. The 5 liter Engines are fuel injected and make around 650 hp. Tires are spec and limited to 24 per week end.

But you can look up all of that elsewhere... lets start with the action! Part one will be some clips from practice and some of the minor races. Later the Shootout and finally some of the main event.

It's all good!



More clips after the jump

















.

Axis giant Bathurst 1000 post: Coming soon!

On the only track in the world might make the Nürburgring look easy, monster V8 behemoths millimeters from concrete walls at 295 km/h....need we say more?

You know you are racing in Australia when...

Kangaroo dodging aside, Mount Panorama has one of the world's most awesome and I imagine, intimidating tracks. Coverage of the Bathurst 1000 race is just fantastic, check out these next two clips: the first a great on board with multiple cameras and telemetry (check out the well advised "let me see if I still have brakes" pumps...) and the second is a ripping qualifying lap by five time winner Mark Skaife....amazing stuff. Enjoy!