IT IS time for the big dance.

WORDS & IMAGES: Mark Walker

In the true spirit of 2020, we’re mixing things up: we could tell you the history of Bathurst in this preview, but you probably already know all about that.

Below sits some stats, facts and oddities for those playing along at home (like us), hopefully they can assist you in predicting the winning race strategy on Sunday, or if you are lucky enough to be in Bathurst, you can eat like a king throughout race week.

Regardless, we wish you a Happy Bathurst Day.

Who wants to volunteer to be a right hand rear tyre?

Trivia Time

LOOKING for some drivers to make it to the top ten shootout? Scott McLaughlin, Anton de Pasquale, Shane Van Gisbergen, Mark Winterbottom, Jamie Whincup and James Courtney all have average starting positions at Bathurst better than 10^th. McLaughlin of course leads the way with an average starting position of 4.1. Saying that, he started from pole last year, but he didn’t really qualify there, did he?

OF THE lead drivers, Whincup’s 9.2 average finishing position leads the way, from McLaughlin’s 10.1 and Percat’s 10.8.

SEVEN of the 50 drivers in this year’s field are rookies, namely Kurt Kostecki, Jordan Boys, Broc Feeney, Dylan O’Keefe, Zane Goddard, Tyler Everingham and Jayden Ojeda, with Kostecki, O’Keefe and Goddard all having previous main game starts to their name prior to this weekend.

RETURNING after a year on the bench are Dave Russell (with Garry Jacobson) and Steve Owen (with Chris Pither).

NOT returning this year are Alex Premat (BP’s Bert owns a part of his crashed Commodore), Luke Youlden, Steven Richards, Richard Muscat, Richie Stanaway, Simona de Silvestro, Dean Canto, Alex Rossi, James Hinchcliffe and Ashley Walsh. The first three listed here all registered top six results last year.

Holden has an incredible legacy at Mount Panorama.

2020 will be the final year of Holden with an official factory presence in the race. Over the years, Holden models to race in the Bathurst 500/1000 have included the Commodore, EJ, EK, FB, Gemini, HK Kingswood, Monaro, Premier, EH , Torana, Vectra and HD. Sadly, nobody ever raced a Camira.

OVER the past 20 years, the race winner has started on the front row eight times. Of course Mostert/Morris put in a big burn from the stern to win in 2014 from 25th on the grid, but there have been some other sizable drives through the field on race day in recent times: Davison/Webb started 17^th in 2016 to win, a year before Lowndes/Richards were victorious from 15^th, the same position as Bright/Richards in 2008.

A TOTAL of 25 cars are set to feature on the starting grid, the equal lowest of all time with 2014. That year featured 10 safety car appearances, equal with 2006 and 1999, although smashed by the 13 appearances in 2000. The most laps under safety car in a race was 2006 with 36, largely due to Paul Radisich’s awful shunt at The Chase. Meanwhile, 2013 and 2018 featured six laps of Safety Car activity each, with two and three interruptions respectively.

THE most lead changes in the Bathurst 1000 in the modern era came in 2001 with 26. 1994 finished with 25, while on 24 each were 2014, 2017 and 2019. Meanwhile 2011 only featured six lead changes.

ALTHOUGH Nick Percat and Tim Slade were quick last year in wet qualifying and made the shootout, the Brad Jones Racing squad had a forgettable race day – Percat/Blanchard, and Jones/Canto finishes 14^th and 16^th respectivelt, both off the lead lap, while Slade’s day ended in the fence on lap one.

THREE straight years of contact from the Supercheap Auto car has dented Cameron Water’s career average at The Mountain, with his seven starts having a mean finishing position of 17.6. The Monster Falcon led 63 laps in 2017 before the first instance of contact at Hell Corner, while the year previous, Waters partnered with the current pilot of the Supercheap machine, Jack Le Brocq, to finish fourth.

A very common sight for the field over the years…

Lap Leading Combos

Below is a list of the total laps led in the Bathurst 1000 by the cars driven by the pilots in each of the 25 combinations.

• 1,455 – Whincup/Lowndes
• 281 – Van Gisbergen/Tander
• 259 – Kelly/Wood
• 243 – Waters/Davison
• 221 – Reynolds/Brown
• 181 – McLaughlin/Slade
• 149 – Winterbottom/Golding
• 118 – Mostert/Luff
• 97 – Holdsworth/Caruso
• 74 – A. Davison/Webb
• 68 – Percat/Randle
• 51 – Coulthard/D’Alberto
• 47 – Courtney/Feeney
• 44 – Pither/Owen
• 41 – Le Brocq/Moffat
• 12 – Pye/Fiore
• 8 – Smith/Perkins
• 6 – Jacobson/Russell
• 3 – Jones/Blanchard
• 1 – Fullwood/K. Kostecki
• 1 – Hazelwood/Boys
• 0 – Heimgartner/O’Keefe
• 0 – de Pasquale/Brown
• 0 – J. Kostecki/Goddard
• Debut – Everingham/Ojeda

Interestingly, both Whincup (744 laps led) and Lowndes (711) are almost level pegging contributors to their remarkable haul.

With three wins under his belt, and 185 laps led, Tander shows SVG the way, while Kelly contributes all of the led laps in his combination with Wood.

Will Davison (178), Reynolds (221), McLaughlin (175), Winterbottom (148) and Mostert (75) all show the way in their combinations.

Spray champagne if you stopped on lap 135!

The Winning Strategy

So much of the Bathurst 1000 is about setting yourself up for the finish – for the past 15 years, it has always been about buying your ticket to the final hour.

The rules to keep mind when juggling strategy include:

• Drivers must not exceed 3.5 hours of continuous driving time.
• Each driver must complete at least 54 laps.
• Seven compulsory pit stops for fuel and/or tyres.
• Brake rotors will need to be changed once.

Looking back at the 2019 edition of the race (below), there were wildly different manners in which the teams that finished on the podium arrived at their final stop – which for all three (McLaughlin/Premat, Van Gisbergen/Tander and Courtney/Perkins) came under safety car on lap 135.

The Laps on which the Podium Finishers from 2019 Pitted

The Lap Length of Each Stint During the Race

Throughout the day, car 17 ran reasonably even stints, a ploy which ultimately saw the team pressed into action one less time than the other podium pair.

Triple Eight meanwhile ran reasonably long on the first four stints, before shorter stints in preparation to line up their final stop at the right time – which ultimately was forced upon them with the arrival of the safety car.

Walkinshaw Andretti United meanwhile made a couple of early stops, which forced them into running long for the next four stints.

For the top three, it was all about that crucial lap 135 service under safety car, which made it marginal to get home on fuel – that 26 lap stint was some two laps longer than any of the other stints seen by the top-three prior – and a distance that needed the help of additional safety cars.

One car that bet against a late safety car was car 888 – Whincup/Lowndes, which stopped on lap 151 for a top up, before eventually claiming fourth.

Talking to The Race Torque, Lowndes has admitted that this strategy has been thoroughly debriefed, and in hindsight they would have stayed on track.

It takes a serious amount of fuel to get through Bathurst…

Insider Trading

Normally in this section we explain the best spectating tips, best local food and drink options, best photography and so on.

With 2020 being the way that it is, that seems a waste, and since state borders have dictated that team TRT are MIA this year, we are going to do something different.

Below is our standard list of venues on our itinerary for any and all of our Bathurst trips – if any race fans who are blessed to be in Bathurst could support these establishments, it would be appreciated.

We would love for them to be open when we next visit town…

Wednesday night: Rose Garden Chinese in Church Street. Because nobody can decide, choose the second most expensive banquet, and order two Heinekens at a time.

Thursday night: Stagger across the street to Jack Duggan’s Irish Pub, perpendicular to Church Street, it is flat out a go to venue in Bathurst.

Friday night: The Church Bar in Church Street for a pizza – if you didn’t know any better, you would wrongly assume we reside in Church Street.

Saturday night: Your choice: Dogwood BX is a good place for American Food, or you could go upstairs at The Ox and cop their race week menu.

Sunday night: Great Wall Chinese, just down the road from Jack Duggan’s in George St. Once again order the second most expensive banquet, you won’t be disappointed.

Monday morning: The Hub Espresso Bar in Keppel Street gets you prepared to sit in a long string of traffic jams as you wonder if you are going to miss your mid-afternoon flight out of Mascot.