For the non-Australians who are wondering what this Bathurst thing is about, it is the way we Aussies have traditionally had our own shootout for ultimate poduction cars (refering to an earlier thread on this section)
Its fame and history is rooted in the battle between the cars that we could buy out of the showrooms in the 1960s... yes Mum's Cortina vs Dads Holden going hell for leather over an endurance race distance of 500 miles.
This race track (which was and still is an ordinary road at other times) had it all.. a hill climb to a summit, tight twisty dangerous sections, a 200MPH straight (although the earlies never got to those speeds). It caught all race enthusiasts imagination and very quickly became the ultimate Australian motor racing event.
It didn't take very long for the manufacturers to see the benefits of winning on Sunday and selling on Monday so the stakes grew. Manufacturers built special versions of ordinary sedans specifically to do better at Bathurst. Ford started the ball rolling and were closely followed by GM then Chrysler. The very famous Ford vs Holden rivalry here in Australia can be directly atributed to this anual event.
The hey-day of this event (and some might argue this) was in the early 1970's when GM and Ford were bulding pure 450HP+ race cars that happened to be road legal and looked like dad's sedan.
These cars were absolute monsters! Ford started with the 289 Windsor, then the 302W and by now were running 351 Cleavlands. A 4 door sedan, the Ford Falcon GT351 HO Phase 3 had the record for being the fastest 4 door production car in the world. The Australian Cleavland heads (that found their way into the Boss engines) were direct desendants of Ford's development program for this race.
GM were by now running 350 Chevs in a medium sized coupe and were bringing it right up to the Fords, and occasionaly beating them - OK more than occasionally.
But the manufacturer's bubble was about to burst. The government, in its eternal wisdom, decided that these cars were too dangerous for the ordinary driver to use on public roads, and promptly banned further such builds.
Not to be beaten, the organisers decided that if the beurocrats won't let the manufacturers build these cars then they would change the rules to allow souped up road cars. If you could buy it off-the-shelf for your road car, then you could bolt it onto your race car.
We saw various incanations of the rules, but the decendant of the old racers still run today in a 1000km endurance event, and are just as popular , although the cars being raced bare little resemblence to a road car (I might get some argument here). They are now highly developed and modified modern race cars.
Cross back to today... this is where the new 24HR format is fantastic in my eyes. In its 24Hr format, it is a totally new and separate event, but it has gone back to the original roots. The 24Hr is for cars that are fundamentally the same as the cars in the show rooms - OK there are some mods like springs, brakes and engine management systems, but they are REAL cars! and guess what? the manufacturers are all showing an interest again!!!
BRING ON THE 24Hr Bathurst!!!
[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Chris L ]
