Mount Panorama at Bathurst is something special. From the Easter motorcycle events in the 50's to the long running touring car races from the 60's though to V8Supercars of today, it's a long (6.2km) challenging and unforgiving piece of public roadway that is only closed and made available to the elite motorsport fraternity just twice a year for the 12 Hour GT race and the Bathurst 1000 for V8supercars.

Or is it?

For a couple of years now some canny promoters have been running another event on the calendar for the "less elite" section of the community. Starting as a couple of groups at the Easter production car races is has recently turned into a stand alone 4 day event for the great unwashed and for three years now each November we've headed to Bathurst to stand on Australia's biggest motorsport stage (even if no-one is watching!).

Challenge Bathurst is a four day event comprising 2 days for SuperSprint (unrestricted lap times) and 2 days for Regularity where a 2 min 36 sec minimum lap time is mandated to keep out the professional GT3 racers from getting in some early 12 hour testing. It's otherwise open to any sports or touring car (no open wheelers) and any driver with a Level 2S licence.

That's right, you can rock up in your bog stock daily driver with standard seats and seatbelt, no rollcage required just roll down your sleeves and stick your helmet on. You'll be sharing the track with 50 or so like minded souls (some in high powered race cars mind) doing your best Brocky impersonation (or Dick if that's your thing) and trying to see the magic 200 on the speedo down Conrod.

We've been double entering the Datsun at this event which means twice the running miles and not much time between runs for cooling down and topping up (fuel not oil thanks for asking) although 2017 brought some unexpected troubles.

If you've been following the Targa blogs you might have noticed a quiet DNF at High Country with an engine drama. No biggee except Bathurst is just 5 days after High Country and 1500kms from home so we're transporting direct from one event to the other. With a busted engine.

Thankfully the Mansfield Towing team let us use their shop for a strip down investigation (and a diff change) before we hit the road and some friends from Adelaide also competing at Bathurst were able to bring over the needed spares direct to Bathurst so we could get it running in time. Parts arrived Friday morning, two hours later the engine roars to life and we drive straight to scrutineering. Easy. Let's not do that again please.

And then it rained. Really rained. After two sessions on Saturday and we still hadn't done a lap fast enough to qualify. Some people didn't run at all. But common sense prevailed and the qualifying time was abolished to allow everyone a run at the timed sessions for Sunday.

And the clouds parted and the sun shone and lo, we got three dry sessions and yesterdays disappointment was forgotten.

This isn't an event for out and out fastest laps (there's just too much concrete) and while some actually try and match their nominated regularity time to chase a trophy, the reality for most of us is that this is an experience, not a race, and something that still not many get a chance to do. So for a few days we can pretend to be Lowndes or McLaughlin, wind the speedo off the clock down conrod (226 kmh for me!) and juuuust hold it flat into The Chase before exhaling again.

And then brag about it with a beer on Sunday night with the other crazies.

2017 Challenge Bathurst