Wow, Le Mans has totally changed the way I think about Bathurst.
I went to Bathurst for years as a kid, towed around behind my old man, stocking up on racing posters and getting autographs. It was great fun. Years later, I worked there as a journalist, getting a behind the scenes look, with my best professional poker face. But beneath said mask I was still that giddy little kid.
I thought Bathurst was the ultimate car race. Then I jetted 14,000km to Le Mans, and my idea of a punishing car race shattered like the neighbour’s window getting cricket-balled.
As I write this to you, I’m standing beside the racetrack at Le Mans. Prototypes tear past me just metres away – there’s the metallic thunder of a Corvette’s V8, the bassy electronic cello strum of a Toyota LMP1, the muted tattle of a diesel Audi R18. We’re 16 hours into the race. There’s still eight hours left to go.
Eight hours – that’s more than the entire race time of a Bathurst 1000, the car race we Australians call our toughest. What. The. Hell.
The sun is coming up but the punters are still filling their bellies with various alcoholic potions. In the pits, team crew sleep anywhere they can – folded into hilariously uncomfortable, contortionistic shapes. Still with helmet and gloves on, ready to wake up and change a gearbox drearily.
All the while, the cars hammer past the pits, around and around and around. Imagine thrashing your street car for 24 hours straight. You’d be surprised if it went the distance without exploding. Yet that’s exactly what these hand-built, awesomely bespoke racers are doing.
Then there are the drivers who must all be insomniacs in their normal lives.
“I’ll jump in the car and do a grand prix distance,” Aussie David Brabham tells us. “Then I’ll jump out, have a sleep and do another grand prix distance. I’ll do that three or four times.”
That’s insane.
I thought Bathurst was tough – 1000km of mechanical and organic torture. But, as I witness a race four times the distance of Bathurst, I can’t help but change the way I think about Australia’s “toughest” race.
Are we actually a bit soft compared to the rest of the world? They should bring back the Bathurst 24 Hour, right?
– Dylan Campbell
PS: TopGearers, not sure what you’re all doing around this time next year but you should book flights to Le Mans, make your way to the Mulsanne Straight, and watch the cars come past at 350km/h. You might mess up your pants. So, so awesome. (Sell a lung if you don’t have the cash, you don’t need two.)