BATHURST 6 HOUR – THE OLD SCHOOL AUSSIE ENDURO
The Bathurst 6 Hour has quickly established itself as a staple on the Australian Motorsport calendar, an old-school production car race which occurs annually over the Easter long weekend.
This year marks the sixth running of the event which has run since 2016 (with the exception of 2020 due to COVID-19), and in 2022 boasts a capacity grid of seventy cars.
The Bathurst 6 Hour provides an opportunity to race at The Mountain in an endurance race against some legends of Australian Motorsport without having to break the bank.
All entries must be under $150,000, while cars are divided into half a dozen classes based on power and performance.
Class X are Ultimate Performance machines and mainly consists of BMW M cars. This is where the winning combo is likely to come from.
Classes A1 and A2 are for Extreme Performance cars, A1 for Forced Induction and A2 Naturally Aspirated. Class B High Performance. Class C Performance, D: Production and E Compact.
All vehicles entered in the 6 Hour must adhere to Group 3E Series Production regs with minimal modifications allowed.
The creation of the 6 Hour came about as production car drivers no longer had a Bathurst enduro to contest. Production cars formed the origins of the Bathurst 12 Hour, however when the once around the clock enduro made GT3 cars eligible in 2011, production cars soon fell out of fashion.
Since the inception of the 6 Hour in 2016 the race has been a happy hunting ground for BMW who have won all five races to date with a variety of its models, from M4 to BMW 135i.
Last year BMW locked out the podium positions, this year there are more Class X cars than ever.
Many well-known names are jumping behind the wheel in 2022 including Dick Johnson racing drivers Will Davison and Anton De Pasquale, other Supercar drivers include Nick Percat, Will Brown and even former champion John Bowe.
It has been confirmed that the defending race winners of Shane Smollen and Rob Rubis will not be pairing up with Shane van Gisbergen this time around as the Triple Eight racing driver has tested positive for COVID-19.
Percat will step into the 2021 race winning BMW M4 in his place as he hopes to assist Smollen and Rubis in becoming the first back-to-back 6 Hour winners.
With former Bathurst 1000 winning engineer Geoffery Slater joining the team in 2022 they go in as one of the favourites, but who can challenge them?
It’s hard to look past a Class X BMW for an outright win with a total of 11 BMWs including M4s, M3s, and in 2022 two M2 Competitions.
