Mount Panorama street racing circuit in Australia

The 2002 Bathurst 24 Hour was an endurance motor race staged at the

Mount Panorama Circuit Mount Panorama Circuit is a motor racing track located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is situated on Mount Panorama (Wahluu) and is best known as the home of the Bathurst 1000 motor race held each October, and the Bathurst 12 Hour ...

just outside Bathurst in

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The race, which was the first 24-hour event to be held at Mount Panorama, started at 4:00pm on 16 November and finished at 4:00pm on 17 November. It was the first 24 Hour race to be held in Australia since the 1954 Mount Druitt 24 Hours Road Race. The race was open to several classes of GT and other production based cars and was intended as a showcase for the racing categories promoted by PROCAR, which included Nations Cup, GT Performance and GT Production. While there was much speculation about the highly popular V8 Brute Utes class also being eligible there was resistance to the idea and they ran short sprint races as a support category. Ten classes were announced, but only five classes attracted entries.

Group 1

The leading class contained vehicles from the international FIA N-GT category and Group 1 cars from the Australian Nations' Cup category. It featured the Ferrari 360 N-GT, Mosler MT900R, Porsche 996 GT3-RS, Porsche 996 GT3 Cup and the controversial

Holden Monaro 427C The Holden Monaro 427C was an Australian built and designed GT style race car based on the Holden Monaro CV8 road car. The car ran in the Procar Australia-run Australian Nations Cup Championship and at the short-lived Bathurst 24 Hour race a ...

which did not have a production counterpart.

Group 3

A class open to Group 3 cars from the Australian Nations' Cup category and to Supertouring cars. Only three BMWs entered,

Supertouring Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created ...

versions of the 318i and 320i and a modified Z3 M Coupe.

Group 5

A production based class featuring GT Performance Cars. The entry consisted of BMW ME Coupe, Ford Tickford T3 TE50, HSV Y Series GTS, Mazda RX-7 Series 8,

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, popularly referred to as the 'Evo', is a sports sedan and rally car based on the Lancer that was manufactured by Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors from 1992 until 2016. There have been ten official versio ...

Nissan 200SX The Nissan 200SX (originally Datsun 200SX until the early 1980s) is an automobile nameplate that has been used on various export specification Nissan automobiles between 1975 and 2002. Nissan Silvia based Between 1975 and 2002, Nissan retailed ...

Nissan 350Z : The Nissan 350Z (known as Nissan Fairlady Z (Z33) in Japan) is a two-door, two-seater sports car that was manufactured by Nissan Motor Corporation from 2002 until 2009 and marks the fifth generation of Nissan's Z-car line. The 350Z entered prod ...

and

Subaru Impreza WRX STi The is a compact car that has been manufactured by the Japanese automaker Subaru since 1992. It was introduced as a replacement for the Subaru Leone, Leone, with the predecessor's Subaru EA engine, EA series engines replaced by the new Subaru EJ ...

Group 9

A production based class featuring cars from the

Australian GT Production Car Championship The Australian GT Production Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned national motor racing title, organised by Procar Australia Pty Ltd, for drivers of Group 3E Series Production Cars. PROCAR had first promoted a national series for production bas ...

. The entry consisted of BMW 323i,

Holden VX Commodore The Holden Commodore (VX) is an executive car that was produced by Holden from 2000 to 2002. It was the second iteration of the third generation of the Commodore. Its range included the luxury variants, Holden Berlina (VX) and Holden Calais (VX) ...

Honda S2000 The Honda S2000 is an Roadster (automobile), open top sports car that was manufactured by Japanese automobile manufacturer Honda, from 1999 until 2009. First shown as a concept car called the SSM at the Tokyo Motor Show#1995, Tokyo Motor Show in ...

and Toyota MR2 Bathurst.

Group 10

A mixed bag of leftovers, it included Future Touring Cars;

Holden Commodore The Holden Commodore is a full-size car that was sold by Holden from 1978 to 2020. It was manufactured from 1978 to 2017 in Australia and from 1979 to 1990 in New Zealand, with production of the locally manufactured versions in Australia endin ...

s and a Holden V8 engined

Mitsubishi Magna The Mitsubishi Magna is a mid-size car that was produced over three generations between 1985 and 2005 by Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited (MMAL). Developed as a replacement for the Mitsubishi Sigma, each Magna generation derived from Japanese ...

, a pair of

Nürburgring The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...

VLN series

BMW M3 The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M GmbH. M3 models have been produced for every generation of 3 Series since the E30 M3 was introduced in 1986. The initial model ...

s and a late concession for Mitsubishi Mirage Cup one-make series cars.

Top 10 Qualifiers

The top 10 qualifiers for the 2002 Bathurst 24 Hour were as follows: * During the first qualifying session, the #999 PHR Scuderia Porsche 996 GT3-RS driven by Jim Richards set a time of 2:20.4364 which would have placed the car 4th on the grid. However, later during that same qualifying session, Peter Fitzgerald crashed on the top of the mountain which damaged the car beyond immediate repair. PHR were then forced to substitute team owner Maher Algadrie's Porsche 996 GT3 Cup car in the race. Due to having to substitute cars, the original lap time did not count and the GT3 Cup car eventually qualified in 14th place.

Official results

Results as follows2002 Bathurst 24 Hour results
/ref> * #999 PHR Scuderia Porsche 996 GT3-RS had set 4th fastest qualifying time. However, due to a practice crash the car was withdrawn and replaced by the teams 996 GT3 Cup car. As the RS was withdrawn the original time was not counted for grid position.

References

Statistics

* Pole Position - #888 Brad Jones - 2:15.0742 * Fastest Lap - #427 Garth Tander - 2:14.3267 (lap 359) * Average Speed - 138 km/h

External links

2002 Bathurst 24 Hour race statistics
Retrieved from web.archive.org on 1 December 2008
2002 Bathurst 24 Hour images
Retrieved from www.pbase.com on 1 December 2008 {{Bathurst 12 Hour Motorsport in Bathurst, New South Wales

Bathurst 24 Hour The Bathurst 24 Hour was an endurance race for GT and production cars held at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales in 2002 and 2003. Only two races were held before the collapse of the management organisation PROCAR. Both ...

Procar Australia November 2002 sports events in Australia