Bathurst 12 Hour Race Weekend
14 February 2015 / Story & Photos by Joe Kovacic
Mt Panorama Bathurst, Motorsport Heaven at one of the worlds best racing circuits.
A sunny Saturday morning greeted 11 enthusiastic MX-5 Club cars for our run to the legendary Mt Panorama for the Bathurst 12 Hour Race weekend. We met up with an additional four MX-5s plus two RX-8s in Bathurst for an 8:30am start.
Upon arrival we swamped the 10 cars from the Toyota 86 Club who shared the Harris Park club cars area with us along with the HSV Club, Torana Club, Subaru Club and a gaggle of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens and Bentleys. We all enjoyed the morning festivities while anxiously awaiting our Parade Lap around the legendary Mt Panorama circuit following the pace car with our tops down.
The afternoon saw us enjoy the qualifying sessions of the GT3 12 Hour Production cars from the comfort of David & Gaynor's Rydges Hotel room balcony situated at the end of Conrod Straight.
Most of us had dinner at the Schnitzel House & Bar celebrating Linton Jones' 35th birthday and exchanging stories on a most exciting Saturday. What a concidence car 35 wins the race.
Sunday morning was an early 5:30am start in the dark for the 12 Hour race. The full field of 50 exotic international race cars was a spectacular sight to behold. There were some of the world's best GT3 production cars in attendance including the Aston Martin Vantage, Audi R8 LMS, Bentley Continental, Ferrari 458, Lamborghini LP560, Mercedes SLS AMG, Nissan GTR Nismo, Porsche GT3 and many more cars all lined up on the multi million dollar starting grid. Eventually after 12 gruelling hours the Nissan GTR Nismo team won the race, followed by the Audi R8, Aston Martin Vantage and the unlucky Bentley.
This is the fourth time we have been to this event which is growing larger in popularity. I would like to thank Ian and Tim from Raceline Events who organised all the club cars along with the hotly contested show and shine competition. Congratulations to Luke Kovacic who won the Most Outstanding Detail Award for his NB SE street/track car.
Next year we will endeavour to get even more of our "worlds most popular convertible" MX-5s to this exciting weekend of Motorsport Heaven. Diarise this event as a must do on the weekend sometime in early February 2016.
