A challenging weekend at Bathurst

2019 Challenge Bathurst and Festival of Zed

Motorsport offers a wide range of different disciplines to suit all tastes and budgets such that whatever car you drive there is a form of motorsport that should suit. In Australia the grassroots events on sealed surfaces are motorkhana and hillclimb meetings on short, low speed courses with the next step up being circuit events for regularity and supersprint. All these events are suitable for novice and experienced drivers alike with only basic car preparation required and an entry level licence needed. There is a strong community in Australia for these events with everything from daily drivers and classic cars through to full house race cars with serious speed competing all over the country.

The attraction for many (like us) in these type of events is the chance to experience real race tracks at a decent speed but without the danger of door to door racing and the inevitable car damage that ensues when you step up to compete in full racing competition. The rules are very clear that passing must be done in a safe manner and there is absolutely no tolerance for car to car contact.

While we only have the two circuits in SA at Mallala and The Bend, we have for the last five years made an annual commute to the Holy Grail of Australian race tracks to compete in the Challenge Bathurst regularity event at Mount Panorama. Bathurst is famous as the home of the Bathurst 1000 endurance event for Australian Touring Cars (now V8 Supercars) and is world renowned for its unforgiving nature and fast but technical layout. As a public road for 340 days a year it transforms from a scenic lookout route to a world class racing circuit just 5 weekends a year and only on one of those weekends can the lowly club racer like us live out the Peter Brock fantasy and actually race at The Mountain.

Bathurst is a dangerous circuit, there is very little runoff anywhere and the unforgiving concrete barriers lining the entire track are waiting to catch the unwary or over-confident driver and punish any mistake. While this is perhaps part of the attraction, for most of us at this level it's not the place to find the limits and push the boundaries seeking the ultimate lap time but just an experience or bucket list item to be enjoyed at a safe and reasonable pace. No-one wants to have an accident here. In our group last year a small touch at the wrong place put one driver in hospital for quite some time with significant injuries. Most people understand and respect that, we're not professional drivers in modern and safe cars, for the most part we are wannabe boy racers in home built classics.

2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the 240z and to celebrate, the Zed car club of QLD had turned the Bathurst weekend into a veritable Festival of Zed, with 51 cars competing together on track and at least another 50 road cars spending time cruising the local back roads and running the usual Show and Shine events alongside the race weekend. It's rare to see this many Zed cars in one place and it really was special to be involved in this birthday celebration of everything Zed.

Bathurst is a big weekend for us. It is logistically challenging as it's over 1,000km from home and combined with the festival meant a six day trip and this year it is back to back with the Adelaide Rally meaning only one day at home on our return to prep the car for rally trim. So the last thing we need is some additional work such as a breakdown or incident this weekend.....

On the face of it Mount Panorama isn't perhaps the best place for a regularity or sprint event, it's mostly three long straights linked together with a long stretch across and down the mountain where you really can't easily pass another car. This inevitably means you get situations where some cars are fast on the straight bits and hold others up in the twisties and of course the opposite with cars fast over the top but then slow on the straights. I think it's fair to stick our car in the slow on the straights group as most of those in our similar time range were comfortably passing us on the straights.

As a driver this can be quite frustrating if you feel you are being held up (in either scenario) but everyone is in the same boat so we just have to make the best of it and don't make any rash moves.

If you think this all sounds like it might be building to something then unfortunately you're right - on the second practice session on day one I was involved in a crash with another car that resulted in a fair bit of damage to the rear of our car and forced the other car to retire hurt with terminal front end damage.

Let's break down the incident by looking at the whole lap. Lap 3 of Practice 1 saw me somewhere in the middle of the pack and as this is early on in the weekend the running order isn't yet fully sorted and people are improving every lap so there is still a fair bit of passing going on. On the run up Mountain straight I'm passing a 370z on my left while at the same time a faster car #71 is also passing me on my right and makes a gap before we get to turn 3. But as we head up and over the mountain I close the gap to the point he's now holding me up so I just sit behind until we reach Skyline where he moves left and brakes early so I pass and move ahead for the run down the mountain to Forests Elbow. As we exit onto Conrod Straight I check the mirrors and see that I have probably gapped him by 100m but as we build to top speed it's clear he is faster and catching fast. At the end of Conrod is a fast right hander (The Chase) that I take flat at just on 220km/h before a big brake down to about 100km/h into a left hander. As we approach the flat right hander the #71 thinks about passing on my right before lifting or braking to allow me to take the racing line and then falling perhaps 50m behind. He can get me on the next straight anyway. At this point I'm clear in front and take the racing line into the left hander only to be hit and spun in the left rear and then making secondary contact with my left front while spinning. After gathering it up I head straight to the pits to retire while the red flag ends the session to retrieve the #71 buried in the sand trap.

I don't think I've ever been angrier in my life. The combination of the adrenaline high and the crushing low of a damaged car is hard to explain and while there was no real risk of physical injury in this crash, the reality of the situation is quite confronting and it's not a healthy mind set to be in.

Initial inspection shows we got off lightly with damage to the left rear bodywork with the exhaust tucked up under the floor and superficial damage to the left front, left door and bonnet. Otherwise the car is still driving straight and we can continue on for the rest of the weekend.

But why did this happen? In an event that is only about lap times not positions and where passing must be done in a safe manner how did we end up with two damaged cars? In my mind the rules are clear: it is the responsibility of the passing driver to do so safely, in driver's briefing they are also clear, hold your line and the other car can pass on the straight. I don't believe I "opened the door" or turned in to a space that wasn't there, I braked at my normal point, turned at my normal point and got hit by a car that was going too fast for the corner.

After the incident the other driver came and apologised but didn't explain and I really wasn't in the right mood in the moment so the conversation was brief. I still don't know what he was thinking or doing or if he even thinks I'm somehow to blame. I'll probably never know.

This isn't my first crash of course, I've twice crashed the rally car, I've had a few offs at Collingove Hillclimb and even had a few bingles on the road but those were all my fault. My own actions, consequences I had to live with knowing I made my own mistakes or poor judgement or simply my ego exceeded my ability. But this is the first time someone has punted me off the track, the first time I've been blindsided by another car and the first time I've had to pay to fix damaged caused entirely by someone else. The kicker here too was that we only had 24 hours at home to repair the car and turn it around for Adelaide Rally.

This is actually the main reason we have never taken the step into proper circuit racing. Of course I want to see how I'd compete with other drivers, of course I want to experience the cat and mouse of door to door competition but I simply couldn't live with the constant threat of damage that also comes with it. I have enough friends running in circuit racing to know that you shouldn't do it in a car you are attached to so to end up with the same sort of damage from a regularity event is quite heartbreaking.

It's fair to say that the whole experience really ruined the weekend for us. While we still completed the rest of the weekend and didn't lose any track time we were both left with a sour taste and asking if the whole experience was worth it. All the good things and fun moments are simply overshadowed by the unnecessary incident and the resultant damage. Motorsport at this level is all about the enjoyment of the experience and if you can't enjoy it why bother? Bathurst has now changed for us from being a "must do" to something we are considering skipping for the first time in six years. Will we still feel this way in six months when the 2020 entries open and the car is fixed? I guess you'll have to watch this space.....