07-10-2006, 10:21 AM
So... what do you do when you're in New South Whales with a 5speed Hyundai Getz, a full tank of gas, and nothing better to do? You visit the most famous racetrack in Australia of course!
For those of you that don't know (I didn't), Mount Panorama is a track located in Bathurst, NSW and hosts the Bathurst 1000: the year's largest V8 supercar race. It's Australia's biggest rivalry... Ford v Holden. The track is actually a public road for 99% of the year but it could fool anyone. The track is a SERIOUS road course and not built like your everday country road. It has painted barriers along the whole thing with the occasional private entrance or vineyard entrance squeezed between them.
From the highest point on the course to the lowest, it's 174 meters. The gradations are REDICULOUSLY steep because it's literally built into the side of a mountain. It's a 6.2km (3.85mi) course that, despite it's extreme elevation changes, allows cars to fly 3 across doing nearly 200mph. I have never seen anything quite like some of the sections of this course. From the diagram, I expected a rather tame course but in actuality... well... last year, out of 46 starting cars, 4 came out unscratched.
Anyways, I headed out from Sydney with my new friend Chris in my new hotrod around 9am. It only took us about 2 hours to get to this place and the road we drove took us through the blue mountains which was quite a drive in itself.
![[Image: DSC_0680.jpg]](http://www.ojacko.com/stories/mm/DSC_0680.jpg)
As we arrived onto the completely empty starting grid, we were greeted by the high pitched wine of two sport bikes, a Gixxer and a CBR doing wheelies down the front straight at like 80mph... so much for local road speed limits. They went too fast for me to catch a shot of them, but the start grid alone was trippy enough.
![[Image: DSC_0683.jpg]](http://www.ojacko.com/stories/mm/DSC_0683.jpg)
It's a track. It looks and feels like a track... but it's an open road. Quite a weird feeling to be standing on the "front straight" without a headset on. Anyways, I tore off letting off a thunderous SCREEEEEEEEECH of the front tires as I plowed forwards at 6000rpms. Ok... so maybe it was more like an "erp" as I lurched forward in the 60hp eggmobile while pegging the revlimiter, but it was still fun! Stopping halfway up the mountain, Chris told me that the cars were hitting 260kph at this very point while my rental was struggling up the hill at the revlimiter in 2nd.
![[Image: DSC_0688.jpg]](http://www.ojacko.com/stories/mm/DSC_0688.jpg)
Up at the top, you can see the entire town of Bathurst below and I can't even imagine how far the roar travels on raceday.
![[Image: DSC_0684.jpg]](http://www.ojacko.com/stories/mm/DSC_0684.jpg)
Now, the easy part of the track is over. No more runoffs or nice straightaways. The track is fairly fast overall, but look at this droppoff...
![[Image: bathurst_wallpaper.jpg]](http://www.ojacko.com/stories/mm/bathurst_wallpaper.jpg)
After this, the course turns into a squigly maze with walls on either side. The road bends off to the right very quickly after this peak and Chris told me, lots of shit goes down at this corner. Seemed like the corkscrew at Laguna but it only gets worse after this. It was so narrow that I was nervous about stopping anywhere to take pics. I thought I would endanger the car. The hill coming down was so steep and it had no runoff at all. It's SERIOUSLY steep and narrow... and very dangerous imo. I guess why that's why people like it. It's exciting.
The coolest thing I saw there besides... oh the sylvias, skylines, late 90s RX-7s (DROOOOOOOL), V8 Fords etc... was this:
![[Image: DSC_0689.jpg]](http://www.ojacko.com/stories/mm/DSC_0689.jpg)
Google it. Holden Torana SLR 5000. Original everything. Bling.
Either way, quite a cool day of exploring. Thought you guys n gals might like to see pics of this rather than pics of a boring old rock
Oh, PS.. I'm going to see about buying something.
![[Image: 608_1_m.jpg]](http://img.drive.com.au/drive_images/dealer/precarexc/608_1_m.jpg)
It's probably a dream, but who knows. They might offer me a job to move out here. Either way, at least I'll get a test drive out of it.
For those of you that don't know (I didn't), Mount Panorama is a track located in Bathurst, NSW and hosts the Bathurst 1000: the year's largest V8 supercar race. It's Australia's biggest rivalry... Ford v Holden. The track is actually a public road for 99% of the year but it could fool anyone. The track is a SERIOUS road course and not built like your everday country road. It has painted barriers along the whole thing with the occasional private entrance or vineyard entrance squeezed between them.
From the highest point on the course to the lowest, it's 174 meters. The gradations are REDICULOUSLY steep because it's literally built into the side of a mountain. It's a 6.2km (3.85mi) course that, despite it's extreme elevation changes, allows cars to fly 3 across doing nearly 200mph. I have never seen anything quite like some of the sections of this course. From the diagram, I expected a rather tame course but in actuality... well... last year, out of 46 starting cars, 4 came out unscratched.
Anyways, I headed out from Sydney with my new friend Chris in my new hotrod around 9am. It only took us about 2 hours to get to this place and the road we drove took us through the blue mountains which was quite a drive in itself.
As we arrived onto the completely empty starting grid, we were greeted by the high pitched wine of two sport bikes, a Gixxer and a CBR doing wheelies down the front straight at like 80mph... so much for local road speed limits. They went too fast for me to catch a shot of them, but the start grid alone was trippy enough.
It's a track. It looks and feels like a track... but it's an open road. Quite a weird feeling to be standing on the "front straight" without a headset on. Anyways, I tore off letting off a thunderous SCREEEEEEEEECH of the front tires as I plowed forwards at 6000rpms. Ok... so maybe it was more like an "erp" as I lurched forward in the 60hp eggmobile while pegging the revlimiter, but it was still fun! Stopping halfway up the mountain, Chris told me that the cars were hitting 260kph at this very point while my rental was struggling up the hill at the revlimiter in 2nd.
Up at the top, you can see the entire town of Bathurst below and I can't even imagine how far the roar travels on raceday.
Now, the easy part of the track is over. No more runoffs or nice straightaways. The track is fairly fast overall, but look at this droppoff...
After this, the course turns into a squigly maze with walls on either side. The road bends off to the right very quickly after this peak and Chris told me, lots of shit goes down at this corner. Seemed like the corkscrew at Laguna but it only gets worse after this. It was so narrow that I was nervous about stopping anywhere to take pics. I thought I would endanger the car. The hill coming down was so steep and it had no runoff at all. It's SERIOUSLY steep and narrow... and very dangerous imo. I guess why that's why people like it. It's exciting.
The coolest thing I saw there besides... oh the sylvias, skylines, late 90s RX-7s (DROOOOOOOL), V8 Fords etc... was this:
Google it. Holden Torana SLR 5000. Original everything. Bling.
Either way, quite a cool day of exploring. Thought you guys n gals might like to see pics of this rather than pics of a boring old rock
Oh, PS.. I'm going to see about buying something.
It's probably a dream, but who knows. They might offer me a job to move out here. Either way, at least I'll get a test drive out of it.
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2008 Felt F75 - Pedal Power
2008 Felt F75 - Pedal Power
but there were no coppers out there and I definitely wasn't pushing it. I did not trust myself with concrete barriers on either side.