It also has the fastest corner in
touring car racing,, the kink at the entrance to the Chase. French sportscar driver
Alexandre Prémat, who later raced as a
Supercars regular, once described the circuit as "A mix of the
(Nürburgring) Nordschleife, Petit Le Mans (
Road Atlanta) and
Laguna Seca".
Nürburgring 24 Hours winner
Kévin Estre claimed that "half of the track is the Nordschleife, half of the track is
Macau".
The Pit Straight The Pit Straight of Mount Panorama, which is adjacent to the pit complex, has a different start line and finish line. For the standing start only, the start line is closer to Hell Corner so that traffic does not go too far around Murray's Corner when the start grid is formed. The finish line is positioned such that all of the pit bays are located after it.
Hell Corner The common misconception of nomenclature due to the accidents that happen at this turn are widespread. Hell Corner was named after a tree stump that existed on the apex of the turn. It was believed that any motorcycle riders who hit the stump would die in an act of folly and thereby be doomed to an eternity of birth.
Mountain Straight Mountain Straight is a long straight that begins the climb up the mountain towards Griffins Bend. V8 Supercars reach speeds of up to before the braking point for Griffins Bend . In the days before modern aerodynamics, drivers would have to lift off the throttle to prevent becoming airborne over the crest halfway up the straight. The crest also caused problems during the old Easter motorbike races at the circuit with a number of riders having serious crashes due to not lifting before the crest and their bikes becoming airborne. Since late 2022 a campaign is being run to have Mountain Straight renamed to Moffat Mountain Straight or Moffat Straight, honouring the Ford driver
Allan Moffat and his fierce competition with Holden's
Peter Brock, which personified the uniquely Australian Ford vs Holden rivalry. This rivalry popularised the annual 500 mile (later 1000KM) race and made it a national event, even for non motor sport followers.
Griffins Bend Named after Martin Griffin, the Mayor of Bathurst whose vision it was to create the circuit, drivers heading around this right-hander have to be careful not to drift too far out of this negatively cambered turn and hit the wall upon exit.
David Besnard suffered a fiery crash here in
2011 after he arrived at the corner in his
Ford Falcon FG with insufficient front brake pressure having come straight out of the pit-lane with new brakes.
The Cutting A pair of left hand corners leading into a steep 1 in 6 grade exit, overtaking in this section of circuit is difficult and it is very hard to recover from a spin here because of the narrow room and steep gradient. This corner was the location of the infamous 'race rage' incident between
Marcos Ambrose and
Greg Murphy. The pair collided when both drivers refused to give the other racing room late in the
2005 Supercheap Auto 1000, with the resulting incident partially blocking the circuit.
Quarry Corner on the run between Quarry Corner and Reid Park Sometimes confused with Griffins Bend, Quarry Corner is a right hander that immediately follows the Cutting. The corner is named after the quarry below the outside wall of the corner, accessible via an access road between it and the Cutting. As the circuit briefly flattens at the apex, drivers are sometimes required to short-shift between gears to avoid wheelspin. One of the most famous incidents in the history of the Bathurst 1000 occurred on the exit of this turn when
Dick Johnson crashed his
Ford Falcon XD out of the lead on lap 18 of the
1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000. Johnson was unable to avoid a large rock that had been pushed from the spectator area as he was passing a quick-lift tow truck at the time and had nowhere else to go. The car was destroyed after running over the rock and hitting the outside concrete wall which the car almost leapt over (the wall had only been put in place prior to the
1979 Hardie-Ferodo 1000; before then the fence had consisted of railway sleepers and fence posts), taking with it Johnson's means of supporting his racing ambitions. An emotional public appeal followed during the race's telecast which re-launched Johnson's career.
Reid Park Following Quarry, there is a loaded right-hand turn followed by an open left-hand turn. This is Reid Park, named after the Bathurst City engineer Hughie Reid, who redesigned sections of the track to be more suitable for motor racing. At the
1982 Bathurst 1000,
Kevin Bartlett had a tyre blow out in the right-hander and pitch him into the inside wall for the left-hander, rolling his
Chevrolet Camaro Z28 onto its roof and skidding across the track. Another high-profile incident occurred in the
2013 Bathurst 1000 when four-time winner
Greg Murphy crashed at the exit of the right-hander on a dirty and dusty track surface.
Sulman Park After Reid Park, there is a steep drop which flows into a climbing left-hand turn, heading towards the highest point of Mount Panorama. This is the location of Sulman Park and its nature park.
Peter Brock had his first major crash at Bathurst here when he crashed his
Holden Racing Team Commodore VP into retirement on lap 138 of the
1994 Tooheys 1000.
Jason Bright crashed here in his
Ford EL Falcon in practice during the
1998 FAI 1000. The car was then rebuilt in time to scrape into qualifying in the dying minutes before Bright and
Steven Richards went on to take victory in the race. This corner was also the scene of a crash in a
V8 Supercar Development Series race in 2006 that claimed the life of
Mark Porter. Sulman Park is also commonly nicknamed "Metal Grate" after a drainage grate on the outside apron of the sequence at the point of maximum lateral and longitudinal load.
McPhillamy Park , with spectator areas at McPhillamy Park on the right McPhillamy Park is a fast, downhill left-hand turn which is guarded by a crest prior to the turn-in point, rendering the corner blind to approaching drivers. Drivers have to stay close to the wall while turning so as not to run wide on exit. However, going too close may cause the car to clip the inside kerbing, which Allan Moffat did in practice for the
1986 James Hardie 1000, crashing the
Holden Commodore VK, which he was sharing with long-time rival Peter Brock, head on into the concrete. British driver
Win Percy, driving
Allan Grice's
Roadways Commodore VL, would complete an almost carbon copy of Moffat's crash in practice for the
1987 James Hardie 1000. McPhillamy Park is the location of the longest-running campsite for those who camp at the track (sometimes for over a week in advance of a race). The park was named after Walter J. McPhillamy, a previous mayor of the Bathurst City Council and the owner of most of the land occupied by the Bald Hills/Mt Panorama which he donated to the people of Bathurst as a scenic picnic area. McPhillamy was the site of Bill Brown's rollover during the
1971 Hardie-Ferodo 500 when the front right tyre on his
Ford Falcon XY GTHO Phase III blew at over , sending Brown up an earth bank before barrel-rolling along the fence. A pair of marshals stationed at that point were lucky to escape being hit after taking evasive action. Amazingly, Brown suffered only minor cuts and bruises in the accident largely due to the driver's seat breaking in the initial impact (in those days, the cars were
Series Production and thus had the road car seats). The famous corner was also the site of the crash between the Falcons of
Bob Morris and
Christine Gibson that blocked the track and stopped the
1981 James Hardie 1000 on lap 120, 43 laps short of race distance, giving Dick Johnson and
John French the win. In the interests of safety for both drivers and spectators at McPhillamy (and to open up the corner to avoid a repeat of the 1981 crash that blocked the track), the banking that had been just off the outside of the track was removed and pushed back approximately on an angle to allow a sand trap and concrete retaining wall to be put in place prior to the
1985 James Hardie 1000. With the increased speed of the cars over the years as both Supercars and
GT3 cars lap the circuit approximately 20+ seconds faster than the
Group A cars did in 1985 with most of the gains being a much faster run across the top of the mountain, for safety reasons this sand trap has grown larger over time.
Brock's Skyline A short straight connects McPhillamy to the next corner. Skyline is a sharply descending right hand corner which signifies the beginning of the descent from the top of the circuit. The corner acquired the name from the visual effect of looking upwards at the corner from below, such is the sharpness of that initial plunge. During the
1970 Hardie-Ferodo 500,
1969 co-winner
Tony Roberts lost control of his
Ford Falcon XW GTHO and launched over the Skyline backwards before tumbling down the hillside. In late 1997 Skyline was renamed as Brock's Skyline to honour the nine time 500 mile (later 1000KM) race winner. Following his fatal crash in a Western Australian car rally, a statue of the driver many call "The King of the Mountain" stands outside the motorsport museum near Murray's Corner.
The Esses and The Dipper The Esses are the series of corners which begin at Skyline and stretch down the Mountain towards Forrest's Elbow. There have been many notable accidents at this part of the circuit, including a blockage of the track in
2003 when
Jason Bargwanna made contact with
David Brabham. The most famous of the Esses, the Dipper (the third corner in the sequence), is a sharp left hand corner so named because, before safety changes were made, there was a dip in the road surface and a steep drop not far from the edge of the road, and many cars were able to get two wheels off the ground, which has often been compared to the Corkscrew at
Laguna Seca.
Chaz Mostert had a severe accident in the lower Esses during qualifying for the
Great Race in 2015. Mostert clipped the inside wall on the run down to Forrest's Elbow, ricocheting the car into the outside wall before it eventually mounted a concrete barrier and clipped the roof of a
marshals' post. The car then slid down the track and came to a halt at the apex of Forrest's Elbow. The accident saw the entry withdrawn from the event and caused qualifying to be red flagged and postponed. Mostert suffered season-ending leg and wrist injuries as his leg made contact with the floor shifter in the crash.
Forrest's Elbow Forrest's Elbow is named after Arthur Ronald 'Jack' Forrest (19 February 1920 – 12 August 2002), an Australian motor cycle racer born in Wellington, New South Wales. 'Jack' crashed his Norton International during the first day of official practice during the October 1947 Bathurst meeting and ground the end off his elbow. Following the crash, the corner initially described as 'The Elbow' or as 'Devil's Elbow' was re-dubbed as (Jack) Forrest's Elbow by fellow Australian rider Harry Hinton, much to the amusement of everyone (except for Jack) in the Mount Panorama pits. Forrest's Elbow is geographically positioned as a slow, descending left-hand turn that leads on to the long Conrod Straight. Alternatively it is described as a severely downhill and adverse camber left hander leading onto Conrod Straight. The corner's line drifts towards the outside wall on exit and drivers have to be careful of getting too close. It was on the exit of the corner that Dick Johnson clipped a tyre barrier during the top ten shootout for the
1983 James Hardie 1000, which broke the car's steering and sent Johnson off into a grove of trees and demolishing the car. This is also where Craig Lowndes aquaplaned into the tyre wall in 2001.
Conrod Straight Formerly known as Main Straight, Conrod Straight was so named because of a
con-rod failure that ended the 1939 Easter race of Frank Kleinig in his Kleinig/Hudson racecar. At , Conrod Straight is the fastest section of Mount Panorama, with V8 Supercars almost reaching . The straight is a roller-coaster ride featuring two distinct crests, the second of which was rebuilt in 1987. Conrod Straight has been the scene of six of the seven car racing deaths on the circuit – Reg Smith, Bevan Gibson, Tom Sulman,
Mike Burgmann,
Denny Hulme and Don Watson. All except Formula One World Champion Denny Hulme (
heart attack) died in high-speed accidents. However, the chicane introduced into Conrod Straight reduced the top speed of cars going down the straight and has created one of the fastest corners in the world. Most drivers arrive at the initial part of the chicane at over . Prior to the introduction of The Chase in 1987, Conrod Straight was a mile-long straight where the faster cars were getting airborne over the second hump, which was a contributing factor in Burgmann's accident. The fastest ever speed recorded by a touring car on the old straight was by Scotland's
Tom Walkinshaw driving a
V12 Jaguar XJS during qualifying for the
1984 James Hardie 1000. Walkinshaw was timed at . Ironically, while the Chase was introduced in an effort to reduce terminal speeds on Conrod, by the
1990 Tooheys 1000, the turbocharged
Ford Sierra RS500s were achieving higher speeds than pre-1987 with
Tony Longhurst reportedly being timed at during official qualifying for the race . Shane van Gisbergen would later hit a speed of during a pre-race session for the
2023 Bathurst 1000.
The Chase Known for many years as "
Caltex Chase", this three-turn sequence was added in preparation for the
World Touring Car Championship round in
1987 to comply with a FIA requirement that a straight could not exceed . It interrupts Conrod Straight with a fast right hand bend sometimes referred as "The Kink," based on international motorsport commentator
Mike Joy comparing it to
Road America's Kink during a United States broadcast of the Bathurst 1000 in
2011, descending to the right away from the crest prior to the spectator bridge, before a sharp left-hand bend. A right-hand corner then returns the cars to Conrod Straight for the run down to Murray's Corner. The section was dedicated to Mike Burgmann, who died in an accident at the chicane's spot in the
previous year. This corner was the scene of
Peter Brock's only rollover in his motor racing career when he rolled his
Vauxhall Vectra during practice for the
1997 AMP Bathurst 1000. The Chase has been the scene of numerous other rollover accidents:
Tomas Mezera during the
1997 Bathurst 1000,
John Cleland during the
2004 Bathurst 1000 after he clipped a slower car he didn't see until too late, Len Cave during the
2008 WPS Bathurst 12 Hour, Allan Letcher in a
V8 Utes race during the
2009 Bathurst 1000 event and
Fabian Coulthard during the
2010 Bathurst 1000 because of a left-rear tyre issue. Another notable accident to happen in the area is when
Scott McLaughlin made contact with
Garth Tander on a redress attempt late in the
2016 Bathurst 1000. Don Watson was killed in an accident at the Chase during qualifying for the
1994 Bathurst 1000 when his
Holden VP Commodore blew a brake disc when he attempted to slow for the kink, leaving him without brakes and limited steering. His car failed to slow and take the right hand kink, instead continuing at undiminished speed across the sand trap before hitting the tyre wall head on and flipping on to its roof, coming to rest on the wall. Watson initially survived the crash but later died from his injuries in Bathurst Base Hospital. The accident occurred in front of former race winners Peter Brock and England's
Win Percy, who described it as a "major accident".
Murray's Corner Murray's Corner is the final corner before Pit Straight and the lowest point of the circuit. It is a 90-degree left hand turn, and is a good overtaking spot as drivers hold braking duels for the corner. It was previously called Pit Corner before Bill Murray crashed his Hudson racing car there in 1946. ==Lap records==