That will not be a problem for the club when it returns to the Bathurst Motor Festival this week. A second group of competitors will take to the track thanks to the more than 110 entries received by event organisers. 

When coupled with the Porsche Club of NSW regularity, the club having confirmed another 50-plus car field, regularity competitors will make up more than half of the total entrants nominated for the Easter long weekend event. 

Never before have so many people been given the chance to tackle the famous 6.213 kilometre circuit who would never before have had the opportunity.

“We spoke to [promoter] James O’Brien after last year and told him how many reserves we had left over that didn’t have the opportunity to have a run – we have been oversubscribed every year we have been at the Bathurst Motor Festival,” NSWRRC regularity organiser Steve Lacey said. 

“James said that as long as we could fill a second grid, he would give us the track time and we had no dramas at all doing just that. 

“The reaction from our people was great and I’d be loathe to think of what would happen if we had to go back to one group now!” 

Lacey, who competes in a Holden Torana A9X hatchback, says the expansion has brought an array of new faces onto the grid.

“We have a whole new group of guys. The previous three years we have been there, it’s been 60 to 70 per cent of the same people coming back each year, but in 2014 about 70 per cent of the people entered are doing it for the first time.

“So many people want the opportunity to get to Bathurst and on such an iconic track in their street car. It’s such a rare thing to do it at speed and that is why the reaction has been so positive.

“With the Porsche regularity the three groups make up more than 160 entries, so you can see the incredible reaction.”

The pair of NSWRRC “groups” will feature an incredibly diverse array of machinery, catering for everything from four-wheel drive turbos and V8 Aussie muscle right down to small hatchbacks that you would take to the shops.

The club has put thought into who goes where between the pair of groups that will take to the track at the motor festival.

“We wanted to have the same sort of speed differentiation in both groups; we didn’t want a fast one and a slow one where everyone would be scrambling among themselves,” Lacey said.

“It’s a better option than having 55 cars all jammed together fighting for clear track.

“This way, the cars will be a bit more spread out and give everyone a chance to get some clear track and properly enjoy the experience. We also have some competitors cross-entered in the same car in both groups, so we had to take that into account.

“We think it’s going to be a great weekend and there will be a lot of happy people at the end of it, that’s for sure.” 

Competitors race against the clock, rather than each other, in the NSW Road Racing Club and Porsche Club NSW regularity trials, taking the need for car-on-car combat out of the equation. 

After practice on Friday, competitors nominate a time and the competitor consistently closest to that nominated benchmark across the weekend is classed the winner.