RACING at Mount Panorama takes you up and down - a feeling Bathurst's Quentin Bland endured across his Combined Historics campaign over Bathurst 1000 week.
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Bland was happy to qualify in 13th for the opening race at the Mount in his Ford Capri and jumped up a spot on the opening lap of the event before he slipped a couple of places to 15th by the end.
That was a pleasing result for the home driver, and he was on track to better that effort in race two until a fuel surge left him unable to finish the race.
Bland wanted to make the last race on Saturday count, hoping to make a charge from the back of the grid.
He managed to jump up to as high as 16th during the race before dropping a spot on the last lap.
But the results didn't matter greatly in the eyes of Bland, who was just happy to finally be behind the wheel on a racetrack in 2020.
"Overall it was really good. I had a good run in qualifying and a good opening race but had a fuel surge on the last lap of the second one, so I had to start on the back of the grid," he said.
"The historics are a really well run group of events and it was really nice to be able to support the Supercars at the Bathurst 1000."
Bland was driving the only Ford Capri in the race, which makes it tough to truly gauge his performance against a variety of historic machines.
Looking at his lap times, Bland was pleased with the numbers considering his lack of driving time this year.
"That was the first race I'd done in 2020. We did have some testing days lined up but we didn't have those," he said.
"I did a 2:39 in the second race, which is very good for that sort of car. It's only a V6, so you're without that extra horsepower on the straights and you need to make sure that you're quick over the top of the Mount."
All three races across the event were taken out by Brad Tilley in his Ford Mustang.