THIS year’s edition of the Bathurst 6 Hour saw a record grid and exciting racing, but the benefits of the Mount Panorama endurance test are still being felt almost a month later.
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The Bathurst 6 Hour – which doubled as round one of 2017 Australian Production Car (APC) season – has given a big boost to the category.
In fact APC category manager Iain Sherrin says the future is looking brighter than ever for the national production car category.
The record-making Bathurst 6 Hour saw 64 entries greeting the start, 17,487 spectators attended the event – up 8.2 percent on 2016 – while more than 100,000 fans watched the race via the live stream.
Feedback from competitors across the weekend was positive, with many who had planned to enter the event as a one-off now contemplating taking part in further rounds of the series.
“The Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour was just awesome, it has been such a good thing for us for this to be our first round. The series thanks the Bathurst 6 Hour team for putting on a great event,” Sherrin explained.
“At the event, there was a real buzz about the APC, you could feel it. From the feedback we are hearing, there are some good cars in the works coming into the series and even more cars to come.
“As far as the event itself, we couldn’t have asked for anything better – the spectacle for spectators was fantastic and as a racer it was amazing.
“People build cars for this race, that has been proven, and now those people are looking around for other places to race their cars and we are really proud that we can provide a place for them to race.
“For me, as a category manager, I feel this event really shows the potential of production car racing in this country.
“With the change in regulations and eligibility announced earlier this year and now such a great start to our year, I think the future of our series is exceedingly bright.”
Sherrin said the growth to the series so far is a point of pride and points towards the stalwarts of the series as deserving of plenty of praise.
Round two of the 2017 APC will be held at Winton Motor Raceway across June 9-11, with Sherrin predicting another large grid to come on the back of the Mount Panorama opener.
“At this stage I think we will hit 30 plus cars. The potential is there for even more, perhaps even 40,” he said.
“I will be on the phone over the coming weeks following up on the chats I have had in Bathurst and it should be a great showing from us in June.”
