Bathurst 2011 Race Day

With much eager anticipation I awoke at 5:45am this morning to begin the live telecast from Mt Panorama.  I wasn't disappointed.  The Touring Car Masters race was great, so many historical US and Australian Muscle cars roaring around the track.  Plus Glen Seaton won, giving him his first ever win on a Sunday at Bathurst (kind of corny but funny and warm hearted knowing the history Glen has at the mountain).

Then after a few more support races it was time for the big one.  Garry Coleman's prayer before the race brought a tear to my eye in the simplicity and completeness in which he presented the Gospel.

The race itself was the closest, most intense and hard fought I think I can remember.  For the entire 161 laps there was no clear leader, always two or three fighting it out for first place.  There was the customary big crash (David Besnard in the #17 Dick Johnson Racing Falcon), the customary co-driver mistake (Luke Youlden crashing the #6 FPR Falcon at the end of a safety car period), the customary hard luck failure (Jamie Whincup's alternator then flat battery - costing him the race win), the customary unlucky fortune (Mark Winterbottom being caught out by the safe car for Jamie Whincup and missing the pits being pushed from 2nd to 6th), and the customary come from no where lucky buggers (Greg Murphy's third place finish).

The race had it all.  With a clincher of a finish, Craig Lowndes hunting down Garth Tander in the dying laps, only to finish 0.2 of a second apart.  Such a great fight - and I never thought I'd be sitting there cheering on a HRT car, but I wanted Garth and his rookie co-driver Nick Percat to come out over Triple 8 Racing (I don't like seeing T8 win anything these days, let alone when Mark Skaife is part of the driver line up).

The biggest talking point is obviously the crash of David Besnard.  Firstly it shouldn't have happened. These guys should know by now to pump the brake pistons back out in the pits after a pad change, but also the dramatic fuel fire, and the speed and ability of the fire marshals to get that fire out so efficiently.   David was fine, the most discomfort he had was from fire extinguisher powder getting in his eyes.

Well that's another year of the Great Race done with, I enjoyed every moment, even with a Holden victory.  The sport and the track make it such a great event - I'm already hanging out for next years.