Bathurst: Only in Australia

Bathurst is a sleep little town somewhere in Australia and for most of the year no one cares precisely where.

Then for one weekend, it turns into the car-racing equivalent of the Isle of Man TT races.

Street races for F1? Pah: this is full open road racing. Cars dash around roads build for sedate traffic, tractors and sheep herding. It's like rallying without a navigator. 161 laps of a track more than six miles long, with steep hills, unforgiving hedges (Armco? Pah) and wide open fields to land in if the jumps go wrong.

For sheer balls-out, manly racing, Bathurst is the place to be.

Imagine Watkins Glen on steroids - and you have Brands Hatch. Now make the same quantum leap, and you have Bathurst.

There is a hotel - but last we heard, it was embroiled in some sort of dispute and it had no windows. There's a stand - but it's not very big. Mostly, motorsport fans hang about in the fields waiting for something to happen. When it does, thunderous V8 charge down narrow roads at speeds that are above suicidal. Then another, then another. It is not a time trial nor even an endurance race. This is a proper flag-to-flag, side by side, door-knob rubbing race.

This year's race - at the time of writing being dominated by Ford Falcons to the chagrin of GM which thought its Holdens had the race in the bag until the cars arrived for practice - has its usual crop of typically Aussie funny stories.

A man is in custody for possession and distribution of pornography after 60 DVDs were found in his tent. He had been arrested whilst pushing a shopping trolley around the campsite - the trolley contained a television set and a DVD player - he was demonstrating his wares as he walked around the camp site.

Another man has been charged with assaulting a police officer after hitting an officer with a dildo, apparently. The police officer was sitting in his car when the man allegedly lunged through the window and struck the officer with the plastic, er, implement.

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