MOUNTAIN HIGH

IT'S ORGANISED CHAOS AS STREET MACHINES MATT HULL TRIES HIS HAND AT MANAGING A RACE TEAM AT MOUNT PANORAMA'S BATHURST 6-HOUR

- STORY MATTHEW HULL PHOTOS CAMPBELL ARMSTRONG, JOSH COCHRANE, SHAUN TANNER & MATTHEW HULL

WHEN I was 21, my mates and I crammed into the back of my little turbo Celica and made the pilgrimage to Mount Panorama. As we sat in our camp chairs up at McPhillamy Park enjoying our cans of Woodstock, we watched on with wonder and excitement as the Bathurst 24-Hour played out before us.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd ever be involved in a race team at that level, yet somehow, more years later than I'm comfortable admitting, here I was. I'd been asked to be team manager and crew chief for a Bathurst 6-Hour team, and I was quietly shitting myself.

For those of you who might be new to cars that go around corners, the Bathurst 6-Hour is a production car race that takes place at God's own race track. While there's a rule book as thick as Street Machine's back catalogue, it boils down to each race car needing to remain as close to its road-going counterpart as possible. Other than safety components and some freedoms around things like exhaust, brakes and suspension, the rest of the car must remain factory standard.

Our team's weapon of choice was a 2008 VE Commodore – but there were no droning autos or fart-box Alloytecs here. This one was equipped with the mighty 6.0-litre L98 V8 and factory Tremec T56 six-speed manual. The car started life as an HSV ClubSport, but having been through many iterations, it now found itself in SS Redline guise to compete in the slightly more budget-friendly B2 Production class. If it was still in ClubSport spec, it would land in the A2 class up against the newer, lighter and faster Mustangs and Camaros run by teams with much bigger wallets.

So, there I was at Bathurst, one of the most famous race tracks in the world, and I was watching people like John Bowe casually walking past while chatting to Grant Denyer, before getting his race suit out of his transporter. Starstruck as I was, we had business to take care of.