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Mount Panorama, Motor Racing Circuit Bathurst (also known as Wahluu by the Wiradjuri people, or often simply Bathurst) is a motor racing track located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is the home of the Bathurst 12 Hour motor race, held each February, and the Bathurst 1000 motor race, held each October. The track is 6.213 km (4 mi) long, and is technically a street circuit, as the circuit is a public road when no racing events are being run, and there are many residences which can only be accessed from the circuit.
The track is an unusual design by modern standards, with a 174 metre (570 foot) vertical difference between its highest and lowest points, and grades as steep as 1:6.13. From the start-finish line, the track can be viewed in three sections; the short pit straight and then a tight left turn into the long, steep Mountain straight; the tight, narrow section across the top of the mountain itself; and then the long, downhill section of Conrod Straight, with the very fast Chase and the turn back onto pit straight to complete the lap.
Historically, the racetrack has been used for a wide variety of racing categories, including everything from open-wheel racers to motorcycles. However, the factors that make the track so unusual, and tighter contemporary safety standards, make it unlikely that major race meetings in these categories will be held there again, and as such it has become the near-exclusive province of closed-bodied automobile racing cars.
As a public road, on non-race days and when it is not closed off during the day as part of a racing event, Mount Panorama is open to the public. Cars can drive in both directions around the circuit for no charge. However, a strict speed limit of 60 km/h (37 mph) is enforced, and police regularly patrol the circuit.
The Mount Panorama circuit is known as one of the most fearsome circuits in the World. It also has the fastest corner in touring car racing, in turn 20 (the Chase). French sportscar driver Alexandre Premat, who later raced as a V8 Supercar regular, once described the circuit as "A mix of the (Nürburgring) Nordschleife, Petit Le Mans and Laguna Seca". German Maro Engel also described the circuit as the "Blue Hell", as a play on the Nurburgring's nickname "Green Hell".
