Photo: Challenge Bathurst Photos The world-famous Mount Panorama Circuit opened its doors to eager Australian drivers last weekend for the annual Challenge Bathurst event.
Designed to give experienced drivers a rare opportunity to tackle one of Australia’s, if not the world’s toughest tracks, the event attracted hundreds of competitors across the weekend to take part in either the supersprint and regularity competition – promoting a fun, friendly, yet competitive weekend of racing.
Starting off with the supersprint over Thursday and Friday, Australian Prototype Series champion John Paul Drake and his driver coach Garnett Patterson took out top honours for the second consecutive year.
Drake took to the track in the familiar ‘joker’ themed Wolf F1 Mistral, posting the second-fastest lap time of the entire weekend with a 2:06.419, before Patterson, a well-known endurance driver in his own right, went almost three seconds faster to post a time of 2:03.785.
Taking out second place by six seconds was Richard Perini, who enjoyed the second-best time in his Ginetta G55 GT4 ahead of Jacque Jarjo in the Porsche 992 GT3.
While the unspoken battle for the outright fastest time of the weekend entertained, there were plenty of other drivers who put on a show in their respective groups and nipping personal-best laps themselves.
Adam Naccarata posted the fastest time in Supersprint Group B in his Radical, and was less than a tenth faster than Andrew Georgiadis in the Porsche 991 while David Murphy was almost half a second clear of Bruce Duckworth in Group C.
It would come as no surprise that Drake would take the honours in Group A, but it was still an impressive weekend for Andrew McKee and Sven Burchartz after posting the second and third best times respectively.
The Regularity aspect of the event also saw a massive turnout take part in Saturday and Sunday’s , with five stacked groups driving to match their pre-nominated lap time.
As if tackling the mountain wasn’t hard enough in itself, some challenging weather conditions also meant competitors would need to be on top of their game.
However, a practice session on Saturday and four separate trial sessions allowed for plenty of track time and familiarisation, resulting in fantastic competition across each group.
Taking out Group A and as the lowest point scorer of the weekend was Simon Tate in the Porsche 996 GT3, finishing within a tenth of a second of his pre-nominated time more than any other driver.
A total of 140 points to his name was unbeaten, with Daren Curry next best in class with 165 in the BMW M2.
Not only did both drivers see low point totals, but it was also the smallest gap across all five groups – with the largest coming in Group D, where Queenslander Brenton Hammond topped second-place Grant Bray by a convincing 268 points.
There were a number of other drivers tasting victory among the other classes, including Jamie Martin (Group B), Stewart Temesvary (Group C), Trent Kenedy (Group E) and Robert Oshlack (Group Z).
Keyword: Challenge Bathurst shines in wet Mount Panorama