Bathurst Australasia’s ultimate test of nerve for drivers and fans

A road built as a leisurely Sunday drive for tourists above reputably the oldest inland town in Australia — Bathurst in New South Wales — has become a Mecca- like attraction for 180,000 people every October.

One of the world’s iconic endurance races, the Bathurst 1000 is the jewel in the crown of the Australian Supercars series. For 50 years, fans have flocked to the Mount Panorama circuit to watch drivers hustle, wrench and fight a bunch of big, fast, noisy and ill- handling ( by today’s standards) tin tops around a public road.

If you are a true fan, according to the stalwarts, the only place to watch is from the banks at the top of the mountain. Not this year, though.

Due to Covid and the resultant gathering restrictions, this year’s event during October 15- 18 is limited to just 4000 people a day who are to be confined to the bottom of the track at Murray’s Corner, pit straight and Hell Corner.

Fans bring alive any sports event, and players and drivers love the atmosphere they create. Bathurst is different, though. The fans who make the annual trek to line the top of the mountain are what makes this race and are a major feature in themselves.

Decades ago, making your way across the perceived badlands at the top of the circuit from Reid Park all the way back to McPhillamy Park was a bad idea. There was no getting away from the fact it was a place no sane person would venture after dark.

It was rumoured that for a number of years, even the police wouldn’t venture into the feral landscape of the Reid Park camping area after sunset.

Although things have calmed down a lot since then, there’s still a whiff of the halcyon days when cars were burnt, toilet blocks blown up, burnouts were a must and the chances of being run over by a motorised couch were high.

These days, you’re more likely to see motorcycle- engined mini trains pottering around towing a spirit-dispensing carriage, a beer keg carriage, a barbecue carriage, a mini lounge and other assorted wagons.

Despite everyone over the age of 18 wandering around with a can of beer in their hand, the longest queue is not at the beer van, or indeed the food kiosks; it’s at a small tent where someone blows up couches. Not in the old- school way when fans literally blew things up and set fire to the couches they brought, these are big two- seater, bright yellow air- filled things.

While the top of the circuit spectator area may have calmed down during the intervening years, the track hasn’t. Bathurst has always been an unforgiving place, where cars travel at extraordinary speeds in what amounts to a concrete shute.

The first left- hander off the grid, Hell Corner, has claimed a few dreams at the very start of the race. Reid Park is a tricky little number that’ll catch out a few and put them into a spin. After Sulman Park and McPhillamy, where the utmost concentration is required, drivers lose sight of the track after Skyline, where it drops away on the entrance to the Dipper — a place to gain on the rest if you have a big enough heart.

Then there’s Conrod Straight, where drivers definitely do not want either a mechanical malfunction, or to head into The Chase too hot — it won’t be a pleasant experience. Just ask Fabian Coulthard, who experienced one of the most spectacular crashes caught on film at Bathurst.

That single race, over a single weekend, has caused more ecstasy, despair, humiliation and humbling than any other in Australasia.

Over the years, the battle of man versus mountain has mentally, and at times physically, broken many an emerging race car driver, even killed a few. But it has also forged some of Australasia’s best and made them household names.