Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Bathurst 12 Hour

I'm delighted to find that Australia's big race is live on youtube. Insomniacs in Europe will be able to stay up all night as there are just under 10 hours to run. One of the great circuits...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzxW4Yu7tc

Thanks for the heads up Kerry - proper big boys racing

Do you get to any of the DTM series out there - we go when they bring it to Brands Hatch, bit of a shame they have dropped the V8's for this year though.

Richard no I haven't been to a modern motor race in decades. If I have the time it's always an Historic meet like Winton or Sandown.

But what a race at Bathurst! Woke up in time for the final 5 laps. How exciting to see racing on a circuit with hills and dips, farmhouses and fruit trees.

Damn. I missed it. I have so many memories of the Bathurst circuit.

I have even driven up the mountain backwards in a Morris J van

Much to the astonishment of a policeman standing at the hairpin. I was surprised that he didn't stop me.

It was all to do with a fuel feed problem and vaporisation in the fuel line because of an exhaust leak which I was later able to rectify. There was a problem going up hill so I decided to go up hill backwards

Ah Peter you would have loved it. Great shots of the green countryside and the racing was tops. Plenty of highlights on youtube.

And your story of driving up the mountain in reverse sounds very credible to us but I'm sure the policeman had heard it all before I drove wife no 1 around the circuit on our honeymoon in 1975. I enjoyed it

The 60 th Anniversary Morgan Owners Club of Australian Muster was held at the Mount Panorama track in October 2018. Enjoyed plenty of laps in my 4/4. One hell of an experience going over the top of the mountain then down Conrad even at slow speed.
I must dig out the dash cam footage....

"Conrod" straight sorry.....

I watched it live via radiolemans.co what a great race.

Plenty more great racing to be shown live on that site in 2019, audio and video.

It's ok, we all suffer from spell correction. And it's worth asking, is a Conrod really straight? Yes the straight part of that important bit of the infernal combustion engine is straight but it has a loop at both ends. Conrod straight always seemed something of a misnomer to me. Would love to do it at speed in the mog.

The 60th and the Muster at Mt Panorama sounds wonderful.

Conrod straight is a downhill straight, originally known as the main straight that was renamed after a conrod failure in a race car in 1939. It used to be nearly two kilometres long and at the bottom end there were two humps. The fastest speed recorded was 290 km/h (180 mph) set by Tom Walkinshaw driving a V12 Jaguar XJS during qualifying for the 1984 James Hardie 1000.
As speeds increased the cars and bikes became airborne over the second hump. This resulted in the fatal accident of Bevan Gibson in 1969. I was present at that race. Bevan's Traco Elfin Oldsmobile became airborne and flipped at 160mph. Unbelievably the race was not stopped even though all the top drivers pulled out and, if I recall correctly, it was won by a relatively mundane sports car, perhaps a Lotus, driven by an amature driver. Another fatal accident occurred in 1986 involving Mike Burgmann. Following this incident the bottom part of the straight was redesigned to include a chicane that is now known as the chase.