Day 5. June 24 2022. Track Day

Track Day. Similar to going to the Dish, I saw Bathurst was on the way to our next destination and couldn’t resist. Similar to the dish, I didn’t know if you get to drive around the track, part of it and whether it would be just a little pissweak. For the last number of years I have been playing on the playstation with some friends and I know the track intimately. So in the end, I was just really keen to see what it looks like in real life.

It didn’t disappoint. Once we got to the track, you go past the pit lane and you get to drive the whole track. Yes it was only at 60kph, but you get to have a good look at each corner, the view off the top of skyline, the huge dip down through the dipper, the length of Conrod straight and the technicality of the chase. Lots of fun. First lap down, back up to skyline for a picnic lunch and a bit of a walk at the top of the mountain and a good look at the dip. Drive down to the start of pit straight for some more photos, and then one more lap with Linda snapping away on the phone.

Motor racing used to be something of a pointless sport to me before I met a revhead mate at work and he introduced me into his group of GranTurismo playstation mates. I now appreciation how a small change in gears, a difference in where you brake, what line you take can improve your lap times by such a lot. The concentration in a longer race of just hitting corner after corner is a bit like mindfulness in that you are concentrated on one thing, and an adjustment can mean disaster. In the real world, we can see how hard those walls are and how tragic a small mistake can be. So for a 6 hour race between two drivers, it is a real test of skill, concentration and endurance.

I have found out a neighbour is an ex-racing driver and has done around 1150 laps at pace on the track. Texting him after my comparatively mundane trip off the top of the mountain down the hill I said it would have been fantastic to be in the passenger seat as he ripped through there. His comment was “No you wouldn’t lol…I was scared every time I went over the top….but what a great circuit, so scary!!!!”