TEAM SHEP'S BATHURST ADVENTURE

IT IS BACK - BUT THIS TIME AS A RACER AT THE ICONIC TRACK

- Phil Shephard

IN 2018, MY FATHER ‘AJ’, AND I HEARD ABOUT THE annual Challenge Bathurst motor event held over six days at Mt Panorama, Bathurst. In 2019 it celebrated fifty years of the Datsun 240Z with cars invited from all over Australia. Peter Harrold from the Western Australian Z Car Club asked if we were interested in sharing a truck with a bunch of their cars. We jumped at the chance, and as Peter wasn’t competing I appointed him my driving instructor.

The competition included two days of Supersprints, two days of Modern Regularity and finally two days of V8 Race Experience laps. We entered Modern Regularity and were due for twenty driving minutes on ‘The Mountain’ in six sessions. We agreed not to break their minimum lap time of two minutes and thirty-eight seconds - this being our first attempt there! The Jaguar was delivered to the depot for the 3700 kilometre trip across the continent, while I stayed home and watched videos of Peter Brock and practised on a gaming app featuring a four-speed Lightweight E-Type at Mt Panorama.

There was also advice from Dad who had driven his silver XK120 Roadster there with Bruce Abrey back in 1991 on the Repco Mountain Rally.

We boarded flight QF574 departing Perth at 5.30 am Wednesday morning and landed in Sydney at 12.40 pm. It was out of the airport by 1.15 pm and on the road to Bathurst.

The best tip was Leslie advising that tomato sauce was an excellent cleaner of copper pipework ...

We arrived at Bathurst about 4 pm and went straight to the track to see if we could drive it - no joy. We got as far as the Mountain Straight gate - but it was closed. We went into Bathurst to find our accommodation. The night was great fun, and everyone enjoyed themselves, before we headed off to dream about Mt Panorama.