Cars with wide-tyre slicks that stick to the road like glue, brakes that stop them dead, driver radio contact with their crew and, more importantly, a hotmix road surface as smooth as a baby’s bum.

But this weekend, go back 50 years to the 1966 Gallaher 500 when the most famous shoe boxes on wheels, the Minis, reigned supreme and filled the first nine places outright.

The British Motor Corporation wanted to show the world what its amazing little flying bricks could do on the racetrack so they brought out two of its top works drivers, European rally champion Rauno Aaltonen and Monte Carlo Rally winner Paddy Hopkirk, to partner local drivers Bob Holden and Brian Foley along with a three-car factory team.

Orange motor dealer Keith McCallum entered a sky-blue and white Mini Deluxe to be driven by myself and John Smith.

The race for us was a chance to show the big guns in motor sport what a couple of boys from the bush could do and, besides, we reckoned it would be lots of fun being long-time Mini fanatics.

But there was no bells and whistles like today.

The race was run in classes according to showroom prices and the cars had to be stock standard with no modifications so that potential buyers could compare performances on the race track.

The tyres were skinny and the brakes after a few laps were red-hot, particularly at the bottom of the straight where they were struggling to pull you up.

The first wheel change had to be done with the tools carried in the car so the pit crew had to open the boot, get out one of those useless jacks and wind away to get the car off the ground.

Filling the tank was done from drums with no fancy gear used by today’s V8s so a fast pitstop changing a wheel and filling the tank seemed to take half a day.

No advertising was allowed on the car and scrutineers made us take off a small 10cm long sticker for a company that had given us four new spark plugs as a sponsorship. You can hardly see today’s cars for advertising.

And the track surface? People complain about Orange’s streets but Mt Panorama back then wasn’t much better. There were no potholes but the surface was bitumen, not the luxurious hotmix it is today, and the corrugations at Forrest Elbow almost shook the car to pieces.

In class A we had to compete against specially-built factory entered red Datsuns led by a Japanese team of totally mad drivers. They eventually filled the first two class placings. But our Mini went around all day without missing a beat.

Avoiding the Japanese as best we could, we had our own race with Ford Cortinas, Toyotas, Hillman Imp, Bellett, Renault, Vauxhall Viva and Fiat.

Down the straight the Mini’s speedo needle hung motionless right off the dial and over the E-for-empty mark on the fuel gauge and the tiny valves in the engine were opening and closing faster than the springs could cope, letting us know with an unnerving metallic screech.

But our Mini hung in while other entrants rolled, crashed or simply blew up.

Aaltonen and Holden won the race with the highest-placed non-Mini a V8 Valiant that was six laps behind. Bob Holden is at Bathurst this weekend along with more than 80 Minis and owners making the trek from all over Australia.