Mt Panorama, (Bathurst) last month celebrated 75 years of motor racing The circuit was officially opened for racing in Easter 1938. Way back then you could hardly call it a race track more like a dirt track. It was all started by a Mr Griffin, you could say as one of Australia's best con's.
The premiss was was to build a nice road up and round the hill to attract the tourist to Bathurst. Back then it was called Bald hills and the government fell for it.. But all along Mr Griffin wanted a race track. So it was dug out the hills side with shovels and picks . Since than the track has been modified several times to make the track what it is today. You can still drive your car up the track in both directions today as its still classed as a public road, but you have to keep to the 37mph speed limit.
Over the years there has been many types of motor spots events held there from motorcycles, open wheelers to tintops and the latest creation of green racing "billy kart races". But due to the ever stricter safety standards we are faced with, its very unlikely that all these events will happen again.
Our very own Jensen Button maybe holds a unofficial lap record there and was reported to have gone round the track in 1min and 48secs in his Vodafone McLaren Mercedes back in 2011 when they went over to spend a day with team Vodafone and drive the Commodore VE of Craig Lowndes. Button’s sub 2 minute time is significantly faster than Craig Lowndes Commodore VE which chug's round in about 2mins and 06secs
Today Bathurst is famous for the Aussie V8 and the 12 hours GT race held every year. with a few classic car event and special stages running running through the year
So as a way of celebrating Bathurst the GT Legends club are holding a 1 hour mini endurance event around mount panorama 67 in the mighty ford falcon Rallye Sprint.
Details of the event can be found
here
Special thanks to Hans Sneep and Knut Omdal Tveito for helping in the setting up of the event
