SEVEN drivers, four class wins and a record lap time, it is little wonder team manager of the MX5 Club of NSW Joe Kovacic was smiling at Mount Panorama last weekend.
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The seven Mazda MX5 drivers competed in the regularity section of the annual Challenge Bathurst at Mount Panorama, their event one designed to test consistency.
Each competitor nominates a lap time and the winner is the driver who has the least amount of variance from that time over the sessions.
It was a test the MX5 drivers proved very adept at, with Stewart Temesvary winning Class A and C, Glenn Thomas taking Class B honours and Challenge Bathurst rookie John Karayannis the Class D victor.
"I was ecstatic and exhilarated," Kovacic said.
"The only class we didn't take out was one that was exclusive to the Porsches because they were in a group of their own, I'm pretty sure if we had an MX5 in there we would have taken that out as well," he added with a laugh.
The MX5 contingent also claimed a third place in Class B thanks to Kovacic's son Luke. However, there was something he enjoyed more than the podium at Mount Panorama.
As a driver more at home in sprint events, he was delighted with his record lap time from the two days.
"He did a two minutes, 44 in a road registered 118 kilowatt MX5 around Bathurst and that's quite a good time from what I can see from what cars do around there," Joe Kovacic said.
"He was ecstatic ... he literally treated it like a sprint and he achieved a PB and it was a quite a good flat time for a standard road registered car and he was actually at the pointy end of the field [in terms of time].
"He out-paced all three of R-Spec Mustangs even though they had more power, he outdid them in regularity as well as the the sprint time."
While just seven of the 178 regularity entrants this year drove MX5s, Kovacic is hopeful of a much bigger presence at next year's Challenge Bathurst.
"We're looking forward to next year and if we can get enough cars together, and I'm pretty confident, if we can get 40 cars together we can have our own exclusive group," he said.
"That will make it fairer for everyone else because the normal classes will be open to everyone else without any MX5s in it."
