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With the Australian V8 Supercar Series making its American debut in 2013 at the Circuit of America track in Texas, it’s time we took a look into the series and with the Bathurst 1000 Enduro coming up this weekend, now is the perfect time. Our guide is The Smoking Tires new Australian contributor Joel Strickland.
Bathurst Porsche Spyder Appearance
This weekend is the famed Australian endurance race, the Bathurst 1000. This 1,000km (621miles) endurance race is V8 Supercars equivalent to the Daytona 500 in Nascar and the Indy 500 in Indycar.
It is held the first weekend in October every year in the town of Bathurst, 200km (121 miles) west of Sydney.
The track was constructed in 1938 as a scenic tourist drive. The circuit which is 6.213 km (3.80 miles) in length is a public road on non-race weekends and can easily be driven around in a road car. The mountain is also home to a number of permanent residents, whose driveways face out on to the racetrack.
Until you have driven the track, you cannot understand just how much the track climbs and falls in elevation. Between the bottom and the top of the mountain is a 174 metre (570 foot) difference in elevation. With such a big difference in elevation it has been known for the weather to be totally different at the top of the mountain compared to the bottom. It could be raining across the top of the mountain but at the bottom it could be a sunny day. Just another unique feature of this most amazing track.
This weekend the traditional Ford and Holden 5.0L V8 Supercars will line up on the grid to do battle, but it will be the last time that it will be just these two Australian hero brands doing battle as next year Nissan and Mercedes-Benz will join them on the grid. But that’s another story, which you can read about here on The Smoking Tire very soon.
As the event goes for four days and the main race is not held until the Sunday, there are lots of support races and display events both on and off track.
This year there will be a very special race car out doing demonstration laps around the mountain, a Porsche RS Spyder.
This is no ordinary Porsche, but the 2006 American Le Mans Series LMP2 winning Porsche, it was the first ever RS Spyder in competition and was very successful in the American Le Mans Series.
The 353 kW (480 hp) RS Spyder prototype was the first new project built by Porsche exclusively for racing since its successful 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans campaign with the Porsche 911 GT1.
The #6 Porsche RS Spyder made its racing debut in 2005 and will visit the world renowned 6.213 km Bathurst circuit in celebration of Porsches LMP1 return to Le Mans in 2014.
The #6 RS Spyder competed in 11 races over the 2005 and 2006 American Le Mans Series, in which time it claimed four LMP2 race victories and never finished outside the top three position in its class.
Tasked with driving the Porsche at Bathurst, will be Dutch driver Jeroen Bleekemolen.
Bleekemolen is no novice when it comes to driving at the mountain as he competed there earlier this year in the Bathurst 12 Hour race, where he finished second in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, driving alongside Aussie drivers Peter Hackett and Tim Slade.
“This is an amazing opportunity: to drive the RS Spyder around Bathurst – one of the world’s best tracks,” said Bleekemolen.
“The RS Spyder is without doubt one of the greatest race cars I have ever driven – and many of its past drivers would say the same. With this in mind, driving the RS Spyder around Mount Panorama will indeed be a surreal experience.”
“Having raced at Bathurst earlier this year in the Bathurst 12 Hour, I can truly say that it’s one of my favourite race tracks; it’s unlike any other circuit I’ve driven. I’d suggest that I’ll be the envy of many race drivers around the world that weekend.”
While we can guess that Bleekemolen won’t be driving flat out on his demonstration run, as we are sure he will be under strict instruction to bring the car back in one piece, it would be interesting to see what kind of lap time it would turn under full pace.
The current fastest lap record of the track under race conditions belong to Chris Gilmour in Formula 3 car with a time of 2minutes 04.6187seconds, set earlier this year.
One of the fastest V8 Supercar laps ever was set by New Zealander Greg Murphy back in 2003 in qualifying for the Bathurst 1000, in what is now referred to as the lap of the Gods, his time a blistering 2minutes 06.8594seconds.
The video is below of that very lap
This record stood for seven years until 2010, when Craig Lowndes recorded a 2 minutes, 06.8 seconds in practise for the 2010 event. A very quick time but it just didn’t have the amazing reaction as Murphy’s lap did all those years before.
Video of Lowendes lap below
The fastest lap ever of the Bathurst track, but is not considered official as it was not part of a racing event, was set in 2011 by Jensen Button in an McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 car in a blistering 1minutes 48.88seconds. This once in a lifetime event was part of a PR exercise between Vodafone, the Australian Grand Prix Corporation and McLaren, to promote the upcoming Melbourne Grand Prix.
We leave you with a great selection of highlights video from the Bathurst 1000 race over the years, until our next look at the V8 Supercar series.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA7D7C4819D3C24DC&feature=plcp
Porsche RS Spyder Images: Porsche Australia
Bathurst / Mercedes Images: Joel Strickland
The Smoking Tire
The Smoking Tire’s YouTube Channel
2012-10-11 21:41:48
Source: http://www.thesmokingtire.com/2012/bathurst-1000-preview-with-video/