One to make you cross on a Friday afternoon.
This year is being promoted as 'Celebrating 50 years of the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000'.
While it will be the 50th running of an October production car race at Bathurst (the first was run in 1963), it won't be 50 years until next year.
1963+50=2013.
It's only been 1000 km since 1973 - before that it was 500 miles (804.6 km). And it's only been the Supercheap Auto 1000 since 2004. Since 1963 it
has been the Armstrong 500; Gallaher 500; Hardie-Ferodo 500; Hardie-Ferodo 1000; James Hardie 1000; Tooheys 1000; AMP 1000; Primus 1000; FAI 1000;
V8Supercar 1000; and Bob jane T-Marts 1000.
Pedantics. Much worse though is that this year they have renamed all the famous track landmarks:
Pit Straight is now Supercheap Auto Pit Straight
Hell Corner is now Westrac Corner
Mountain Straight is now Armorall Mountain Straight
Griffin's Bend is now Pedigree Corner
The Cutting is now Tyrepower Cutting
Reid Park is now Fujitsu Park
Sulman Park is now Etihad Park
Skyline is now Dick Smith Skyline (the naming of this as Peter Brock Skyline didn't last long)
The Esses are now Coates Hire Esses
The Dipper is now Coopers Dipper
Forrest's Elbow is now Falken Elbow
Conrod Straight is now Jim Beam Straight
Caltex Chase is now just The Chase
Murray's Corner is now Bigpond Corner
http://bathurst.v8supercars.com.au/racedetails/circuitdetailstrackmap/tabid/1...
Disgraceful.
Well there's the big $ talking again, it's hard to find anything these days with any relation to the true spirit of Australian history, it's going
to be damned hard to identify where they are talking about in the race when one can't recognise the land mark names. 
Not that I care that much, the race has lost a lot of apeal to me since they made it a race of the clones, same car slightly different body.
Everything is about sponsorship these days unfortunately
That being said, I am going again this year, It is a great event and still Australia's motor race IMO
I have watched it since I was a wee boy 
Who cares!! Ill still be there watching it soaking up the atmosphere!
Phil, you are absolutely right. The V8 stupid car mob obviously can't count either......their limit is 20, perhaps? They are advertising the "50th
Anniversary" this year - it's actually 49 years!
Next Easter will be the 50th anniversary of my first race at Bathurst - Easter, 1963, and it looks like I'll be getting a drive!
Just ignore the new names, and call them what you always have called them. That goes for Eastern Creek, too.
I will be there in a xu1 torana doing a lap of honour before the main race for the anniversary of 40 years since peter brock won in a torana
the landmarks have always been 'renamed' to reflect various sponsors.
conrod straight was also lengthened to slow the cars down at the end.
still the same legendary track, for now!
Sorry to be pedantic, wolfgang, but Conrod Straight was actually shortened....to add the 'chase'
it'll be interesting listening to the commentary team trying to get their heads around the new names... lol
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This coming from a guy who drives a car with a fibreglass body on a vw chassis. |
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Correct, and loving it, bring back the Minis, Volvos, Cortinas, ahh, back to the future for me, loved seeing the minis knocked sideways by the wind of the Hemies rocketing past |
yep ingnore the new names and keep the old ones in your head
It all seems a bit pointless until they start racing with real cars again.
Bring back Dicky's Cosworth!
Newt
If I was a previous major sponsor, I might take exception to them advertising it as '50 years of Super-Cheap Auto 1000'. Super-Cheap haven't been
sponsoring it for 50 years so they shouldn't get the credit. I'm sure a decent lawyer would be able to persuade them to just call it 50 years of
Bathurst.
Sponsorship is obviously financially necessary but it does cheapen the event somewhat. V8 Supercars is a great category, but they aren't quite as
special as the old production touring cars were in the 1970s. That time can never happen again though. The Aussie manufacturers aren't strong enough
to do it anymore. Developing road-legal race weapons is too expensive for manufacturers who are no longer selling even half the volume that they used
to back in the day. The real problem with V8 Supercars is in the carpark. All the supporters wear their Ford and Holden t-shirts, but they drive to
the mountain in Hyundais, Toyotas and every conceivable type of imported small car and 4wd. Large sedans are not volume selling cars anymore, the real
Aussie family car is now a small four-cylinder front wheel drive hatchback. If you re-launched a true touring car race in Australia it would be like
the BTCC, front wheel drives under two litres.
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Wow Frank, I went to Canberra a few years ago to photograph the old Greg Cusack dealership on Mort St in Braddon. You can still faintly see 'Greg
Cusack' under the new paint on the building, and there is still an awesome metal VW sign cast into the footpath. The Shell servo at Manuka is on the
site of Cusack's other dealership from the '50s and '60s.
Apparently there was such an uproar over Dick Smith Skyline that it has now been renamed Dick Smith (Brock's) Skyline. It was originally named after
Peter Brock as a tribute to him shortly after his death, but sponsorship dollars apparently came first - until the uproar anyway. Tim Blair blogs
about it here:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/com...
We all sound quite old
I have some great Bathrurst year books from the late '70's and early 80's that I bought as a youngster