It’s that moment when you descend through the mountains, and reach the Bathurst plateau.

That moment when your eyes squint to see the outline of “Mount Panorama” engraved into the side of a hill. That moment when you turn onto the main straight and drive under the SuperCheap Auto foot bridge.

Bathurst is one of those places that gets your heart racing. From the split second you arrive trackside, to the first engine that’s fired up and the last wheel that’s turned for the day. Sometimes it can be hard to contain the excitement, and for me; my first ever Bathurst 1000 was a weekend I won’t forget, for many years to come.

An early trip up from Sydney on Wednesday morning meant I was trackside from 8am to see the transporter parade and all the teams setting up. The paddock was almost like a ghost town, not a single sole around, and a lot of empty spaces.

Eventually everyone rolled in, and by lunch time, the paddock was swarming like a bees nest and all the support category teams were laying out their equipment and off-loading cars.

Track action kicked off on Thursday, just after 7am, with the first Supercars practice session beginning at 9:40am. The wait was on for ‘the mountain’ to claim its first victim of the weekend, and sadly, that ended up being someone who has the same surname as my first name.

Tim Slade found the wall at The Esses, his car returning to the garage on the back of a flat bed with extensive damage to the left hand side. I had quick inspection of the devastated Commodore, and a greeting of sympathy towards a shattered Sladey, before strolling back to the media centre to ponder on whether you could classify the Mount Panorama Circuit as a street track.

I spent the last 50-minutes of my day standing in the Red Bull Racing garage, while Porsche Carrera Cup Australia were out on track for their practice session. As I stood there, staring intently at the timing screen, ‘THE’ Paul Dumbrell walked past me and grabbed his helmet off the bench!

For the rest of the weekend, I would make my annual trip down to the Red Bull garage for each of the Carrera Cup sessions with the guys from Grove Racing. It’s quite phenomenal how much work gets put into those Supercars. I peered next to me where a laptop sat with a checklist of all the things the mechanics need to do. Almost half the page was filled with green boxes of stuff they’d completed, but yet the top of the screen still said 34 jobs remaining.

Grove’s weekend didn’t exactly go to plan, ending up with two DNF’s out of the three races. This was the first event where I have been so engrossed and involved in a race team, and what struck me; was the emotional shockwaves that got sent through the garage and people within the team when ‘our car’ popped up on the big screen with damage, or in the wall.

It hurts, truly hurts and just tears you apart to see the car return to the support paddock on the back of a flat bed, with the whole front left missing.

On Saturday, I was extremely privileged to experience a moment with my own two eyes, that will go down in Supercars history. It happened right in front of me, and I am proud to say I was there.

One name; Scott McLaughlin.

There is no way you can comprehend a 2:03.8s around Mount Panorama. It’s un-heard of, and within 3-minutes of the Kiwi clocking his time in the Shootout, there was already a hashtag trending on Twitter as “Lap-of-the-gods2”.

When Scotty set the lap, everyone went mad! Ballistic! Bonkers! Ford fan or not. Shell V-Power Racing fan or not. Mount Panorama erupted with Supercars fans bewildered at what they had just seen. If I do say so myself, I wasn’t the only one shouting and clapping in the media centre. Journalists, Photographers, Commentators, TV crews, not a single person could wrap their heads around what they’d just seen. Even the great Neil Crompton was bowled over by it!

Race day was something else. An atmosphere that could never be replicated.

Reality only set in when I walked onto the balcony and Delta Goodrem was performing. It was the four-minute song that set the mood for the next 7-hours.

I secured myself a pristine spot to watch the start; just above the Nissan garage on the balcony that overlooked the start finish straight. When the formation lap started, my heart rate increased…dramatically. But when the revs began to rise and the lights on the starting gantry went out, it must have been beating at one hundred miles per hour!

The race flew by, 161 laps felt like 5-minutes and before long, there was a few thousand people below me, cheering for David Reynolds and Luke Youlden who were wielding the Peter Brock Trophy on the podium.

That was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life. Full stop. The second the course car came by to signal the circuit was safe to cross, hundreds of joyful fans sprinted across the track to try and get as close the podium as possible. It was like an evacuation of an ant nest, like an alarm went off.

I guess when David Reynolds wins a race, you’re going to want to be somewhere near the podium, because there is a fair chance of something outrageous happening. No surprise he did a Shoey, or kicked his boot into the crowd, or even waltzed onto the actual podium courtesy of a ‘piggy back’ from co-driver Luke.

Overall, it was a weekend that exceeded my expectations in every way, shape and form. You know when you arrive at Mount Panorama you’re in for an epic weekend, but it’s a place that delivers time and time again, no matter what.

If you haven’t taken a hot lap around the circuit in your own road car – at the 60kmp/h speed limit because we’re responsible – then get to it! Just take a second when you reach the top and think to yourself; bless the person who decided to build a race track right here.

Roll on next year’s Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour!

WORDS & PHOTOS: Slade Perrins

Slade Perrins, who is just 15, is an aspiring motor sport journalist, already looks after media for Grove Racing in Porsche Carrera Cup Australia, and has already contributed to several major outlets and publications in his burgeoning career. Earlier this year he went for a ride in a McLaren GT3 car and wrote about it for The Race Torque, here.