It is also impossible not to compare the race’s impact on the city to the Bathurst 1000 each October.

And at a local level, there is really no comparison.

The Bathurst 12 Hour attracts nowhere near the number of fans to the city as the Bathurst 1000 and the economic boost for local businesses, hotels and restaurants is also much less.

The CBD streets are not nearly as clogged and the shopping centres are not nearly as busy. And driving on the highways into and out of town the morning is not nearly as time-consuming.

At the same time, Australia’s mainstream media has also been slow to ramp up its coverage of the 12 Hour and we do not see the blanket coverage in the metropolitan press and on TV that the Bathurst 1000 attracts.

Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find anyone from outside Of Bathurst who knew the 12 Hour was on this weekend – unless they were a diehard motorsport fan.

And there’s the rub. Those who are in the know – the motorsport teams, drivers and domestic and international fans – see things very differently.

Many of them see the 12 hour as the more important and more entertaining of Bathurst’sbig two races and many see it as having a brighter future than the Bathurst 1000.

They like seeing the broader range of marques tackling the Mount Panorama course and enjoy the chance to see a greater stable of overseas drivers testing their skills on the famous course.

This ultra endurance style of racing is particularly popular through Europe and America and some of the competitors on the Mount this weekend will have come direct from the Daytona 24 Hour classic in the USA.

No professional outfit would put themselves through that sort of strain – a combination of long haul flights and jetlag – unless they were coming here for a genuinely important race.

And if that’s how the broader motor racing world sees the Bathurst 12 Hour, then it’s probably only a matter of time before the rest of us start to see it that way, too.

The Bathurst 1000 will always hold a special place in the hearts of all Australian sporting fans, but its  promoters must be very aware that there’s a new kid in town.