Yep, I finally made it to Bathurst!
I have been wanting to go to Bathurst for a long time, but given the popularity of the event, and the costs to get up there, its never really been an option, but a few things have changed in the last 12 months or so. Early last year my motivation to go to Bathurst increased because v8 Supercars announced that as of 2017 the Car of the Future rules would allow additional engines into the category, at the same time renaming themselves to 'Supercars'. We wont go into how stupid I think this is, but having always wanted to go to Bathurst, I wanted to go to see v8s, not 4s or 6s. Don't get me wrong an inline turbo'd 6 is awesome, but not in a field of 26 v8s..
The other, and major contributing factor, I recently learned that an old mate of dads now lived in Bathurst, and on the off chance, I asked if he'd mind if myself and Rob pitched a tent in his back yard. He was more than happy to oblige! And so the planning began...
I organised a few days off work and we headed up, it would have been good to take a week and do a few things on the way up etc, but neither of use could afford that much time off work, we were on the boat Thursday night and spent Friday driving up, something like 800km.
On the way up we made a few stops worth mentioning, the first of which is probably the coolest, theres a town in NSW, no where near the ocean, that has a full size diesel submarine in the middle of town, yes you read that right, and it gets cooler, its not a mockup, its the actual outer hull from a real submarine that was in service for over 20 years!
A photo of it when it was still in service:
This photo was taken at the Naval Base in Devonport, New Zealand, which is on Auckland's Northern Shore, I thought that was cool.
The second stop was at Gundagai, which I didn't realise was an actual place, we went and found the 'Dog on a Tuckerbox'. Literally just a dog sized statue on a tuckerbox...
Also worth a mention, we passed a crash site where a B-Double loaded with dunny rolls had run off the road, down a bank and into the bush, leaving a trail of toilet paper on the highway for several hundred metres.
We arrived in Bathurst at around 6:30pm, and made our way straight to Pete's (dads mate) place, hoping to get our tent setup before dark, Pete and his wife were extremely friendly and accomodating, we got setup and headed into Bathurst for a look around, to grab some supplies and a feed.
Saturday, 8th October, 2016
Saturday was primarily to scout out the track, so we didn't bother getting up to early, I think we were on the track around 9am, people everywhere it was nuts! We spent the first half of the day looking around the merchandise tents (buying a few things), surprisingly in the merchandise area there was a fairly big Super Cheap store, its not surprising that they were there, but the size of the store was a surprise, and there were two of them! One trackside (near the pits) and one atop the mountain. We watched the V8 practice from just past the last corner, after which we went for a walk through the paddock, which nicely timed with a driver signing session, Craig's line was massive so I lined up to get Scotty's signature. Something else that was there of interest to me, not a week ago I saw this video on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVwY0JUK-O4
And Triple8 had the very car in the Paddock on display, it looks way cooler in the flesh!
We also checked out the Peter Brock tent, which had on show most of his actual race cars, it was very cool.
After lunch we jumped on a bus and headed up the mountain (you cant walk up), the bus was run by SCA and Club Plus members got free rides, so that was cool, we explored all over the mountain, looking for the best vantage point for tomorrows race. We watched the support races, as well as the top ten shootout from above the Esses. Scotty punched out a great opening lap, and was still on pole until the last challenger came out, that being JW, I didn't want Jamie to knock Scotty off pole, but he did, and after watching the lap from onboard later on, it was a hell of a lap.
Getting back into Bathurst took a good while, we attempted to leave earlier than everyone else, and I am glad we did, we made it back into town in time for our booking at a restaurant called Acropile Restaurant, we figured we've been eating plenty of junk food so we better have at least one decent feed.
Sunday, 9th October, 2016 - Race Day
Up at 6am to be there in good time and try to snag our chosen spot, the night before we checked the website to see if we could take a few alcoholic drinks in, it said we could, to a limit, but apparently the guys at security had a different set of rules, I had to walk back to the car with the cooler bag to remove the 'offending' cans. Once we got to the top of the mountain we high-tailed it across and found a spot very close to where we decided on yesterday, its probably not the best spot to watch, but we decided we needed to be in range of a SuperScreen, so we could keep up with all the action that didn’t happen in front of us, looking back now, I am glad we did.
We enjoyed the drivers parade, and the tribute to Peter Brock, a parade of most of his race cars, driven by current drivers who have won the Peter Brock Trophy, amusingly the car Jamie Whincup drove, ran out of fuel climbing the mountain…
Around 15 minutes before the race we got a second visit from an F18 Air Force Jet, a very impressive piece of machinery, but the coolest part, was when he flew less than 50m over our head, at a fraction under the speed of sound, I know because just after he went past us, I saw the white ‘effect’ that happens on the wings when they break the sound barrier, but it was not accompanied by a sonic boom, so he can’t have broken it, but he was close. If you dont know what I am talking about it looks like this:
It was an awesome experience, the ground shook as he flew overhead. Absolutely unbelievable.
Race time! Ah the moment was here at last, the v8s do there warm up lap and line up for the Great Race, and what a race it was, during the race I wondered all over the mountain watching, it truly is an incredible race track, and you can’t fully appreciate it until you have been there.
The atmosphere around the mountain was surreal, and it was quite amusing after the altercation late race involving Whincup, Scotty and Tander, for several laps the whole crowd boo’d and put the middle finger to Whincup as he went past (at the time we thought it was his fault, having watched all the footage later on I am not so sure). After the race we figured there would be no point rushing to get down off the mountain so we remained seated for a while, as people were leaving the amount of rubbish left behind was appalling, but it turned out good for me, someone ditched a pristine Super Cheap Bathurst camping chair, I had nearly bought one before the race so I grabbed it!
We bused down off the mountain and spent an age trying to get out of the parking lot. We grabbed Red Rooster for tea and went back to Petes, we had a good chat with him and his wife before heading to bed, thanked them for letting us stay in their backyard, they are amazingly friendly people!
MONDAY, 10 October, 2016
We chose to take two days to get home, given the distance, and the fact that we needed to be at the ship by around 5pm, we could have done it in a day but it would have required an early morning and carried a certain amount of risk. Looking back now I am most glad we chose to do it this way, we had a fairly relaxed morning, packed up the tent and went into Bathurst to do some shopping, I picked up a present for Amy, some beautiful ear rings. After that we headed out of town, to start the trek home, we went via the track, on the off chance it would be reopened, it wasn’t, well, pit straight was, but it was closed past the entrance to the internal campground, so of course we drove it, stopped for a few photos, and on the way out stopped to have a look at the Museum, we ended up there for longer than expected, we tried to find a geocache, got some photos with the Brocky statue, and explored the gift shop.
Upon leaving we decided to traverse pit straight one last time, and a pleasant surprise awaited us, the track was reopened!!
BEHOLD, my lap driving Bathurst:
It took 7 minutes and 30 seconds, but it was awesome!
We ended up leaving Bathurst way later than planned - but getting to drive the track was so worth it! Here are some photos from around the mountain.
^ Me driving up mountain straight.
^ Rob on top of the mountain
Heading down Conrod
Our original plan was to go home via Canberra, but given our late departure, we decided to instead just head for Melbourne, stopping along the way at anything of interest. We had also planned to pitch the tent somewhere, but the weather was getting worse the further south we got, and the forecast wasn’t great, so we booked a room in Albury.
TUESDAY, 11 October, 2016
Opposite the hotel we booked there was a massive bike shop, we timed leaving the motel so I could call in and have a look at some bikes, I was mainly after a look at a Giant Trance 3 - I came away wanting one. Maybe one day. Onward to Melbourne!
We arrived in Port Melbourne around 2pm and parked robs car at the TT Line office, and caught a tram into town. We visited Minotaur, Zing, EB Games, I also grabbed a box of krispy kremes,
and a range of OAK flavoured milks (they're really good!)
I got cookies & cream, cool mint and molten caramel. All far better than any flavours we have in Tassie.
We returned to the car in good time to load up, and get in line. We had tea onboard and played a game of Star Trek Catan before hitting the sack.
I hadn't intended to collect hats, but over the past few years at various Supercars events I've bought a few and well, its becoming quite the collection..
My favourites would have to be the red Bathurst 1000, and the Lowndes Bathurst Wins one.
My shot glass haul from this trip
I dont get to tick things off my bucket list very often, so it was pretty cool to be able to tick Bathurst off it.