This year presented a unique opportunity for a travelling Sportscar reporter. For the first time, Europe’s three major 24-hour races – the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps – were all in one month, back to back to back.
After a decade of watching these events (and more recently, providing overnight coverage on DSC) from my bedroom in Adelaide, Australia, I finally made the trip over to experience each of these events in the flesh.
It was one incredible month of motorsport.
Not only was it a packed month of sportscar coverage, but this was also my first trip overseas to boot! I’ve been very lucky to get the opportunity to document and share my travel experiences as a wide-eyed motorsport fan who happens to be in possession of a notebook and a media pass, experiencing these major events for the first time in person, after a lifetime of being a motorsport fan.
My early memories are littered with mornings watching Formula 1 races on tape with my dad before heading to school, and we’d watch Supercars from the stands at the Adelaide 500. Video games exposed me to international series and tracks; I knew Donington Park better than my own neighbourhood thanks to the 1998 TOCA Touring Cars game, and as a 10-year-old I had the Nordschleife memorised thanks to Forza Motorsport.
As I grew up, I was able to engage in motorsport in different ways. Online streaming meant I could watch Le Mans in full for the first time in 2009, and a desire to be involved saw me start my Motorsport Australia Marshalling licencing in 2018, and I’ve since marshalled club, state and international events at tracks such as Adelaide, The Bend and Sandown.
I’ve done commentary for national sim-racing leagues which have included drives from current Supercars drivers, and I managed the reddit.com/r/WEC community for a 7-year period from 2015 to 2022. I ran my own podcast – Endurance Chat – from 2016 to 2023, covering everything Endurance Sportscars.
Through my experiences both in person and online, I’ve been able to meet and interact with so many people who share a passion for not just Endurance Racing, but motorsport in general.
While attending the Bathurst 12 Hour as a fan in 2019, a meeting with DSC’s editor Graham Goodwin turned into an hour-long podcast recording, which then, a few months later, turned into coverage of the Australian GT series for the site.
The extremely well-timed visit to Adelaide by the Asian Le Mans Series in 2020 provided an opportunity for my first taste of trackside reporting, before a whirlwind of a weekend at the Bathurst 12 Hour to really get an idea of what this sportscar media was all about.
Four years on, and I’ve been the lead reporter for DSC at the Bathurst 12 Hour since that 2020 event.
And that’s where this year’s travel diaries start!
*****
Approaching the town of Bathurst always brings with it a sense of anticipation, of magic. The Blue Mountains fading in the rearview mirror, giving way to the central tablelands – fields on gently rolling hills, dotted with gum trees far out into the distance.
On the brow of the hill, the iconic sign comes into view. “MOUNT PANORAMA BATHURST”
There’s a chill down the spine, the hairs stand up on the back of the neck. Welcome, to Bathurst.
It doesn’t matter who you ask – teams, drivers, the media, or the punters – everyone has something to say about the place. Words like “goosebumps” and “spectacular”, “adrenaline” and “consequence”. Laura Kraihamer, driving the track for the first time, said “It’s f**king crazy!”
Drivers mark it in their calendar as a race they want to compete in. A win here compares to a win at the Spa 24 Hours, or Nürburgring 24 Hours – arguably, the two tentpole events in the world of GT3 racing.
There’s an adage among the Australian motorsport community that ‘The Mountain’ chooses its winners. And there’s an element of that spirituality, of that ethereal power, that is embedded in every event at Bathurst.
Simply put, the Bathurst 12 Hour as an event – like the circuit – is “special”.
It doesn’t matter who you ask – teams, drivers, the media, or the punters – everyone has something to say about the place
Friday Morning at the Bathurst 12 Hour felt like waking up late for the first day at school. A significant delay in travel meant I arrived in town after dark on Thursday, missing the chance for a gander as the teams were settling in.
Instead, I arrived at the track at 6 am to do a quick tour of the paddock, introducing myself to every mechanic, team owner, and driver I could find ahead of the first practice session of the weekend.
The Bathurst 12 Hour is the one regular event I cover on-site for DSC. Because of that, there’s always a bit of nerves on the first day of proceedings. Even though the 2024 edition is my fourth working as trackside media, and I’ve got a longer list of contacts, supporters, and friendly faces to touch base within the paddock and media centre, there’s still a significant dose of imposter syndrome that hits me as I hit the paddock for the first time.
It always takes a few solid conversations with colleagues in the media centre or an interview going well off the bat to take the edge of that off. And with how frantic my arrival had been, it was certainly a scrambled start!
*****
But before you know it, the first session is underway. The schedule is gruelling, with six practice sessions, a qualifying session, shootout, and then of course the race, all squeezed into three days. Working solo makes the balance of responsibilities a constant juggle; you must find an appropriate balance between chasing news in the garages and welding yourself to your desk to cover the sessions.
It is impossible to do it all, and with how quickly the sessions come through, sometimes a story must wait until the end of the day to get wrapped up. Thankfully, everything I wrote was being subbed and posted by people working on a totally diffentent timezone, which takes some of the immediate pressure off. Why rush to publish a practice report when your audience is fast asleep?
My early imposter syndrome feeling always seems to peak at about midday on Friday – right about the same time that BMW WRT hosts its ‘media roundtable’ in the old driver’s briefing room, nestled on the inside of Murray’s Bend. When a team has a particularly high-profile driver, they’ll often lock down media access times to specific windows to prevent a constant stream of reporters requesting an interview.
Knowing that Valentino Rossi is a big draw, WRT always offers a roundtable early in the weekend for reporters to ask questions, before effectively locking its drivers away for the rest of the event. It’s a great opportunity, but it is extremely daunting to be in a room with a group of other reporters firing questions at a 7-time World Champion so early in the weekend!
One disadvantage of working trackside during an event as media is that it’s impossible to engage in the goings-on around the track the same way as you can as a fan. Making the most of the gaps in the track action for the IGTC runners is key. It’s not time to relax, instead it’s the time to gather information in the paddock or feverishly convert audio files into text and getting things queued to publish.
My first few years at the 12 Hour were spent as a fan, camping at the top of the mountain in swags – effectively a canvas bag that you sleep in – taking in the sights and sounds of the track action on one of the best pieces of road in the world. But, in five years working the event as media, I hadn’t had a chance to go back up top and experience the cars on the limit.
That had to change.
*****
Sneaking out for the Bronze-Only Practice 2, I took the shuttle up the mountain and stepped into the chaos at McPhillamy Park. While Mountain Straight and Conrod Straight are bordered by residential properties, the entire top of the mountain is General Admission access. You can walk all the way from The Cutting, all the way down to Forrest Elbow.
An artificial spectator mound puts you above the wall, with great sightlines on every rise and fall, while the sound of the cars scraping on The Grate, or echoing down The Esses tells you just how hard everyone is pushing. Taking good pictures is as easy as point-and-shoot, as the mountain does all the hard work for you. It was awesome to take a chance to enjoy the Mountain as a fan, even for a moment.
But I was entirely unprepared for what was still to come. Just ahead of Practice 3, I get a tap on the shoulder from Richard Craill, head of the media at the Bathurst 12 Hour. “Are you busy at the moment? You should go to pit exit at 12:30.”
The opportunity, as it happened, was to take a ride on a bus.
Myself and a few other selected media were loaded into a minibus, and sent out onto the circuit with an intervention vehicle behind us, 60 seconds ahead of the start of Free Practice 3. Just as we were entering Griffins Bend, the call over the radio came: Green Light at Pit Exit. I was sitting at the back of the bus, and only just saw the headlights of the first Mercedes AMG come into view as we rounded the corner.
Approaching The Cutting the #75 SunEnergy 1 Mercedes roars past us, followed by the two Triple Eight cars. For the rest of the lap, we endured a terrifyingly enjoyable ride, with GT3s rounding us up over the top of the hill as we lurched over kerbs, laughing in disbelief and clinging on for dear life. Not bad for my first proper lap of the Mountain!
*****
Working the paddock at a big event, especially something like the Bathurst 12 Hour, gives you plenty of access and is a real privilege. For anyone passionate, weilding a media pass comes with real perks. It’s great to be able to pick apart questions that you are interested in, straight from the source, and share those learnings on a platform like DSC.
One of the contentious points of the weekend was the entry of Bronze drivers in the Pro class, in an attempt to circumvent the drive-time requirement in Pro-Am which included an hour of Bronze-rated time after the halfway mark.
By sheer coincidence, while on my way back from interviewing Pro-entered Bronze driver Liam Talbot in the #22 Wash-It Audi, I came across Pro-Am-entered Bronze driver Yasser Shahin in the #911 Shell V-Power Porsche. In less than 10 minutes, I had a fully formed story ready to go!
Sometimes, if you have a specific story in mind, it’s ideal to effectively book a time with a driver via the team or manufacturer’s media representative.
This year it came in handy to book a time with Maro Engel and Jules Gounon, to ask about the end of the 2023 Bathurst 12 Hour and how their friendship changes on the track.
Knowing that could be a sensitive topic, I booked a time with each of them through their media representative and let them know that I’d be asking about that race, which they were both very gracious in answering for me.
It can feel invasive sometimes, approaching drivers and team members for comment. For the most part, particularly the Pro-class entrants understand that it’s all part of the job and will give you the appropriate time and responses if you approach them respectfully. It’s a delicate balance, especially if a team is having issues or if things aren’t going well.
Sometimes those issues can be minor frustrations – Audi Team MPC suffered a string of crank sensor issues on Friday that affected much of their running, but were otherwise inconsequential – but sometimes those issues can be huge rebuilds or weekend-ending shunts. Back in 2020, I remember very meekly asking KCMG boss Ian Geekie about the damage to the #35 KCMG Nissan GT-R Nismo after a heavy shunt in Practice 2, where I was frankly informed that the car’s weekend was over after a single practice session.
Unfortunately, that’s not uncommon at The Mountain, and reporting on repairs, failures, and withdrawals comes hand-in-hand with the difficulty of the circuit.
This year, it was the KTM X-Bow that would be the Mountain’s pre-race victim, with a heavy crash late in Practice 6 damaging the chassis and unfortunately putting the GT2 X-Bow out of the weekend.
Earlier in the weekend I sought out Laura Kraihamer to ask her thoughts on being a part of the event, and her energy and excitement were electric – she was bouncing off the walls.
Not even 24 hours later, she cut a forlorn figure as we crossed paths on one of the stairwells. It was a stark reminder, not only that The Mountain bites and bites hard, but that there are humans involved in every team and every car, and the human aspect of these events shouldn’t be forgotten. In Laura’s words, “It’s a long way to come to not even get to the race start.”
*****
At 3:45 am Sunday the alarm goes off. 15 minutes later, I’m out the door and on my way to Crema on George, the best coffee shop in Bathurst central, not least of all because they’ve extended their opening hours to allow the line of crew members, organisers, and me to get a cup of coffee on the way to the track. The track marshals, on the other hand, have already been trackside since about 3:30 in the morning.
It has a magic about it that I don’t think can be replicated anywhere else in the world
The Bathurst 12 Hour is unique in the world of motorsport in that it starts in darkness and runs into the sunlight. That first magic hour in the darkness is the only time each year that cars race at Bathurst in the dark, and it has a magic about it that I don’t think can be replicated anywhere else in the world.
Watching the headlights cut across the Mountain on that opening lap, before the sun starts to rise and paints the sky with that perfect orange glow is a remarkable hour of motorsport.
As the cars exited the pits onto the sighting lap and made their way to the grid, a frenzy of activity caught my attention at the bottom of pit lane; the Vortex 1.0 was in the lane, and there was some significant work going on.
I slipped into the back of the garage and watched the crew, as they poured over the rear of the car, peeling back bodywork and mountings, and working frantically to hammer something into place. The clock was ticking, and the atmosphere was tense.
The car gets dropped, new rear bodywork and wing attached, and peels away from the pit box to a cheer of relief, making it to pit exit just three minutes before the start of the race. I caught driver Julien Boilot, with a wry smile on his face, as the team filtered back into the garage, high fives and applause all around. The issue? A spin on the sighting lap at Forrest Elbow, but luckily nothing structural to repair.
And with that, it was time for the race start. The media centre at Bathurst has a small balcony looking over the starting gantry – a perfect view as the field rounds the final corner and roars into life. The safety car peels into the lane, the green flag waves, and the field roars away into the darkness.
12 hours to go.
*****
The first hour ticks away without any major incident. The next few, however, feature some safety cars for minor issues, and some great racing in the GT3 field, with major players already coming to the fore.
The Bronze drivers in the Pro-class cars get their stint squared away without issue. It allows them to, in a sense, put their feet up and watch the pros do the work. The stop-start nature of the morning had kept the field compressed and kept me typing away, trying to keep track of everything going on.
Then, one of the leaders crashed out, in a big crash in traffic. Sheldon Van Der Linde talked about ‘consequence’ at Bathurst after taking pole; 24 hours later his car was riding the wall and out of the race.
The 12 Hour is a long day’s work and after a busy weekend, and not nearly enough sleep, I was feeling it!
A long yellow flag, then another yellow flag. The clouds circle overhead, and then the rain starts, plunging the race into chaos. There’s a safety car. Then the rain stops, then we go green and the rain starts again. The leaders get a penalty. The leaders take that penalty incorrectly. The rain wreaks havoc. A safety car brings the field together. The Porsche leads again.
The 12 Hour is a long day’s work and after a busy weekend, and not nearly enough sleep, I was feeling it! I think a 12-hour race is maybe harder to cover than a 24-hour one, especially one that starts so early in the morning. There’s no chance to unwind or take a break in the midst of the action, especially when covering the race solo. Because of that, it’s so easy to find yourself drifting.
It starts out slowly; you stop paying attention to the commentary in your ear, the few bits on timing, you’re tracking stop jumping out at you, and before you know it there’s 20 minutes of the race that’s disappeared without you.
Before I was even really aware of it, the race was already building towards the finish. Manthey EMA had taken control, and not even a late safety car could put them in trouble, as Matt Campbell took his second victory at The Mountain.
As soon as the chequered flag falls, the clock starts ticking; get that quick race report up and live as close to the end of the race as possible, before the drivers file in for the post-race press conference. Try and catch a driver or two for a chat afterwards, then load that recording in and send that off to DSC’s deputy editor Stephen to have a listen.
Then into the paddock, to try and chat to the Pro-Am winning guys – quick, that’s Yasser Shahin heading to his motorhome! I flag him down for a quick chat and wish him congratulations and good luck for the WEC campaign ahead before heading back to the press room to unpick the race.
The traditional post-race pizza rolls in – thank you Bathurst 12 Hour! – as I’m hyperfocussed on my race wrap-up. The rows in the media centre start to empty, as the people around me finish up their last bits and begin to trickle out, their goodbyes and well wishes the only interruptions to my tunnel-visioned writing.
I finally feel like I’ve finished the report, and look at the time – 8:30 pm, over three hours after the race has finished. Where did that time go?
And 20 hours after I woke up, I was finally back in bed. The 2024 Bathurst 12 Hour had been an absolute rollercoaster from start to finish, but there was plenty more in store for me in the year ahead!
