Bathurst 6 Hour 2024
I don’t think the gravity of what we achieved really dawned on us until we got home and the social media pages lit up. It was the fastest running of the event with lap records being broken but somehow it was the slowest car on the grid that had people talking. For the first time in 20 years (well, actually, maybe the first time ever) the Camry name was being screamed out by fans across the top of the mountain!
We knew taking a 26 year old Camry back to the mountain was always going to be an uphill battle, since the last time it raced there the cars have gotten faster and the teams bigger and more professional. Honestly how did three guys from Hervey Bay who have never raced at Bathurst before expect to get any attention with names like Will Davison, Thomas Randle and John Bowe on the grid.
Our main objective was to get the Camry around the mountain for 6 hours and just finish the race, we did that where a lot of other cars did not. This reliability saw us rise up the leader board all day long starting in 58th place and coming home in 33rd position.
In doing this we also managed to capture the attention of every amateur racer in the country that has ever dreamed of doing what we just achieved as we showed that it is possible to make your dream happen. But it wasn’t just the racers that we inspired, the crowds across the mountain and into the chase recognised the underdog and all threw their support behind us cheering every time the Camry crossed the mountain. Of course we had to have some fun with it so when word got out that we had had tissue boxes, knitted blanket and a bowls hat on the parcel shelf people just had to see it for themselves. Both fans and the media loved the retro car livery as a nod to the livery run in the 1998 Bathurst 1000.
We were dubbed “The team living the dream” by Pit reporter Aaron Noonan (V8 Sleuth) who gave us a great wrap during our televised first pitstop live on air. Some carefully crafted media releases before the race meant he knew all about us, the car and our mission, all while giving our sponsors some great coverage on free to air TV.
Having never raced at Bathurst before we needed as much practice time as possible and Darren and Russell set out to split the 1 hour first practice session. The car seemed to be running well but at the end of the session Russell lost drive and coasted back into the pits with smoke smouldering out of the cabin. It was revealed that some wiring got caught up in the alternator belt, stripping the belt and destroying said wiring.
Our amazing mechanical team got to work and fixed the issue in time to get Shane Logan out for Practice 2 later that afternoon. It was hard to get a clean lap in with so many cars on track so it was just a matter of staying out of trouble while confidence was built up. But unfortunately after just 4 laps the clutch let go and ended our session after just 15 minutes.
Again the mechanical team of Alistair and Paul along with some help of the other crew got the clutch out, being Good Friday there was no places open to get a clutch so it would have to wait for Saturday morning, unfortunately practice 3 was on at 9am and it was looking like we would not get any laps in this final practice session. With no Camry clutches available anywhere Alistair had an idea of making a Rav 4 clutch work so the they set about getting this clutch in not knowing whether it would work or not.
This took us straight into Qualifying on Saturday afternoon, with just 4 laps under his belt Shane had to put down some decent laps to get under the 3:04 cut off qualifying time. He knocked 8 seconds off his practice time to go 4 seconds under the required time at a 3:00 flat. Only being a 20 minute session the chequered flag was out after just 4 flying laps.
Unfortunately, we had overlooked the ride height after having to run 15 inch tyres so we were disqualified for being 19mm too low, once rectified we were able to start the race from the rear of the grid.
Sunday morning – Race day.
We were greeted by the news on Sunday morning that although Shane had qualified to race, Russell and Darren both had to set a qualifying time under the 3:04 to be eligible to race, but with only one 20 min session for warm up remaining it was going to be tough. Darren got straight out and dropped 14 seconds of his best practice time nailing a 2:58 on his 2nd flying lap and came straight in to put Russ in the car. Russ only got 1 flying lap in before the session ended and fell just short of the qualification mark despite dropping a further 4 seconds of his best lap time.
Team manager Barry went to the stewards armed with loads of paperwork and race results to apply for dispensation for Russell to race and argued that one more lap under green would have seen him drop below the qualifying time. Barry managed to convince them and we were all cleared to race. Strategy was going to be easy, six equal one hour stints to get us home and not worry about safety car periods etc. Our goal was to just bring it home. It was such a surreal experience actually being on the grid at Bathurst , surrounded by the team ready to embark on our biggest adventure yet.
The green flag dropped and Shane tentatively followed around at the rear of the pack continuing to gain confidence and speed. It was long before the first of the 12 safety car periods were triggered. The clutch was holding in perfectly and although the car wasn’t hugely fast against the competition it was relatively easy to drive and never felt like randomly spitting us into the wall.
After the first hour Shane came in to pit which was covered by the commentary team calling us “the team living the dream” we got great exposure as Aaron Noonan shared our story which really resonated with the fans. Unfortunately a fuel leak issue was discovered on our first stop that would cause some delays in leaving pit lane. This was really the only issue we had all day but once we realized the issue and could monitor it we were fine.
Darren was next in the car and he continued to chip away and stay out of trouble, of the 12 safety car periods we can happily say we didn’t cause any of them which was a relief. Russell would go in next and take it up to the half way point in the race. By this point cars were dropping out due to crashes and mechanical issues which saw us steadily making our way up the leaderboard.
The next couple of hours ticked by with no issues and we clocked up more and more laps. By the time Russ got in the car for the final hour the race was really starting to heat up and more cars were dropping out. The top 3 cars were locked in an epic battle going toe to toe, lap after lap. Culmination in eventual winner Ojeda catching and passing Russell on the outside through the Esses while completely crossed up, this made every highlight reel for the race.
Another huge moment with around 15 mins to go saw Russ get pushed deep into the braking zone by a class X BMW, locking a front brake Russ ran off and into the deep gravel. Not many cars get out of the gravel at that spot but Russ kept his momentum and cleared the gravel back to the grass. This resulted and a huge cheer from all the surrounding garages (we had no idea that they were all rooting for us) from other reports the crowd went wild at the chase when he cleared the gravel.
Even V8 Supercars commentator Chad Neylon took to twitter (X) with a photo of the car leaving the gravel with the quote “Just glorious” with love heart emoji’s.
After 6 hours and 100 laps around the mountain we took the chequered flag to absolute elation from the team, we had just completed the biggest race an amateur racer can enter and made sure every person there knew about the Camry.
A massive thanks goes out to all the punters at the track who took the time to come and visit our garage over the weekend and tell us past stories of the car and share their love of Camry’s. The demand for the car to return back to the mountain next year has already started with people wanting more relatable cars on the grid instead of more top class Beemers or GT4’s!
None of this would have been possible without our amazing team mates who travelled from all over the country to help crew on the car and keep us fed and looked after all weekend to help us live out our dream. And also to our amazing sponsors who have been so supportive over the past 6 months in the lead up.
710 Motorsport, AutoPro Hervey Bay, Synforce Oils, Turning Point technology, Wolfpack print, Boss lubricants, AO Cleaning, Goddards Busses, River Heads Property Sales, Crazy Panels, SMS media alerts, Adnev Security and Tow Ware.
We are unsure what next year will hold for the team but we are keen to go back with or without the Camry!