The Bathurst 6 Hour almost got away with it

Every annual race at Bathurst has legitimate reasons for it to be your favorite, but I always want my favorite to be the 6 Hour. Not because it’s the most impressive motor race or display of cars but because of what it represents. It’s possibly the finest example left on Earth of a truly grassroots endurance sports car race on one of the world’s greatest circuits that anybody determined enough can just up and do. And racing on Mount Panorama is extremely challenging, which is what makes the camaraderie and down-home-ness of the 6 Hour all the more lovable.

2026 has been an especially tough year on the Mountain, though. Ironically, the glory days of motor racing we are currently in is making the Mount Panorama Circuit harder to navigate — and harder to officiate — and it was already hard enough. And the 12 Hour and the 1000 have big money behind them; the 6 Hour is a different story. This year’s running was made even harder by the stupid war and its impact on fuel prices, but heading into the Easter race weekend, the organizers secured the fuel, they improved their safety practices, and they landed a new long-term deal. These all felt like great omens.

And the Bathurst 6 Hour deserves every chance. Between the incredible support series and the big race itself, it’s like a dream come true for anybody aspiring to be at the pinnacle of Australian motor racing. It has this come-one, come-all attitude. It’s the big Bathurst race for Aussie Racing Cars and Trans Am, and this year they even found a home for the wayward Australian TCR cars — their debut at Bathurst!

And the 6 Hour itself involves all kinds of crazy cars run by small-town teams and whole families and hobbyists and club racers and whoever else wants in… starting alongside a bunch of current Supercars drivers. It’s like if there were a run-what-you-brung open-wheeler race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Kyle Kirkwood and Scott Dixon and Christian Rasmussen all liked to show up and have a crack.

The racing is, of course, amazing. So it’s a shame that this year it was run on a tire that active Supercars drivers Jayden Ojeda called “scary.”. It’s a shame that oil slicks resulted in high-speed crashes at the top of the mountain. And it’s a shame that another Bathurst race this year was marred by a horrendous crash resulting in broken backs and hospitalizations. It makes me sad to feel any shadow at all over a glorious day of racing on Mount Panorama, and it keeps happening.