Packed grids, international raiders, hometown heroes and the Goat for Bathurst International

The newest motor sport event to be held at the iconic Mount Panorama, Collier feels the Bathurst International will deliver a three-day extravaganza of racing to make it an instant hit.

For Supercars fans there will be the lure of seeing the likes of Jamie 'the Goat' Whincup, young gun Broc Feeney and Tim Slade again testing their skills at the Mount.

Like the Bathurst 12 Hour there will be GT racing, like the Bathurst 6 Hour there will be production car racing and there will be local hopes Brad Shiels, Brad Schumacher and Dean Campbell to cheer on as well.

Collier knows it is a tantalising mix.

"It's absolutely three days packed with motor sport action, there is hardly a moment to breathe with all the different categories being out there," he said.

"Another event for Bathurst is always going to be good.

"There's a good smattering of international drivers coming too, pretty much all the categories will have some international drivers competing."

When teams arrive at Mount Panorama next Wednesday to set up, it will mark the realisation of an event many years in the planning.

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The inaugural Bathurst International was initially going to be held in November 2020.

"Having suffered the first one being cancelled with COVID and then the second one we basically gave our weekend and aligned it with the Supercars event, but that actually worked out quite well," Collier explained.

"That six-day event was something unique and it certainly worked at the time, but it's a 100 percent pinch me moment having our own event independently running this year and we're really looking forward to it."

The racing program, which begins at 7.20am Friday and runs through to 4.40pm Sunday, features seven different categories.

It means spectators will get to see Hondas and HSVs, Mercedes, Mustangs and Monaros, Audis, Porsches, BMWs, Camaros, flying Falcons and a host more.

"We've got a great mix of categories that are going to be out there on track, including the TCR, the touring cars, which will have it's final round," Collier said.

"The GTR World Challenge is going to have a three-hour endurance race on the Sunday morning, so that will be a great thing with all those cars.

"Then of course there's the might Touring Car Masters which is a crowd favourite always and they'll have a great range of cars up there as usual plus those candidates like John Bowe.

"We'll have Trans-Am which is new the new muscle car, we've had them at Bathurst before, but there's going to be a big field of Trans-Ams there and some new competitors who haven't competed with us in the past."

Shiels will form part of the TCR field and Schumacher will line up in the GT World Challenge Australia series.

As for Campbell, he will form part of a bumper Australian Production Car grid.

"A lot of those guys are turning up to do their pre Bathurst 6 Hour testing, so that's a great thing," Collier said.

"I think they'll have nearly 50 cars on the grid for those production car races, they're going to do four 30-minute races and that's just really, really great."

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