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After yet another miniscule spectator attendance - two men and a dog, and the dog was only there to keep the men in, as the late Frank Gardner used to say - for a 'production touring' race, it's high time that the organisers realised that high-performance cars like Evos, BMWs etc. will never draw a crowd.
The race in its current form is just an ego trip for wealthy amateur racers who put talented co-drivers in their high-performance cars to make themselves look good.
Production touring car racing should be for mass-produced (ie. at least 10,000 registered in the preceding year; possibly pro-rata for six months to allow for recent releases) 'base' models (eg. Commodore Omegas and Falcon XTs). Then it could be promoted as a real 'showroom showdown', just like the Phillip Island/Bathurst 500-mile races in the early-1960s.
Properly organised and promoted, it would have to be more successful than the current race - and eventually maybe even rival the 1000km V8 Supercar event!
Otherwise it's only a matter of time until Bathurst Council decides that the economic return, which can't be very big, doesn't justify the noise and inconvenience to the residents who live near the circuit.
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