Bathurst 1000: Thousands get a little wacky ahead of iconic Australian race

Thousands of diehard revheads have descended on Bathurst for the country’s premier endurance race in the motorsport calendar.

Hoping for glory and the Peter Brock Trophy, 16 Chevrolet Camaros will face off against 10 Mustang GTs in the 61st edition of Bathurst 1000.

Held annually on the Mount Panorama-Wahluu Circuit in Bathurst, NSW, thousands of fans have already set up camp ahead of Sunday’s showdown.

For race fans there’s almost as much entertainment off the tracks as on, with live music, historic displays, family fun, and crowd activities scheduled for the four day event.

Qualifying for race positions among the 26 cars began on Friday and will end on Saturday at 5.05pm as the fastest 10 take part in a “shootout” to decide the line up.

Devotees were out in force on Saturday for the sixth qualifying race, with wild costumes on show.

The race itself starts at 11.30am on Sunday, as teams compete over 161 laps of the iconic track — expected to race for between 6 and 7 hours.

As is often the case, drivers are likely to experience changing conditions, with the forecast predicting a cold morning moving to warm afternoon with the chance of a shower.

Events so far have not been without their spills as two huge crashes marred the qualifying races on Friday.

The annual endurance race was first held in 1963, but grew from 500 miles to the 1000km format a decade later.

Initially the race began as a way for revheads to test the performance and endurance of their everyday vehicles and has evolved over the years to become one of Australia’s premier motorsport events.

Diehard fans of the race booked out the more than 7000 available campsites for the four-day event in a matter of hours when they went out for public sale in May.

After 19 races of the 2024 Supercars season, Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Will Brown leads the pack with Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert in second place.

The Bathurst 1000 will be broadcast on Channel 7 as well as its 7plus app.

Foxtel also has broadcast rights to the weekend, which will be shown on channel 506 and streamed on Kayo.