Bathurst Fun Dampened by Limited Running
25th October, 2022Round seven of the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup season was cut short with just one race completed for points and another cancelled entirely before cars even hit the track.
From a scheduled 33 racing laps over the weekend the category completed just 16, of which a good portion were behind the Safety Car. The limited running put an incredible emphasis on qualifying, with the results of race one becoming the overall results for the round.
Taylor qualified 11th after encountering challenging conditions with rain falling across the top of the mountain and a bone dry track down near pit lane. Race one was held under significantly worse weather with extreme amounts of water on the track. Early in the race Taylor was fighting for eighth place but a spin at The Chase dropped him off the pack. Without other cars immediately in front, water was able to resettle on the racing line before Taylor came through which made him effectively a pioneer to conditions at each corner. With safety in mind and little to gain Taylor elected to retire his car early – which ended up being just two laps shy of the actual race finish which was cut short.
The second scheduled race saw a remarkable deluge flood the circuit in parts, leading to the cancellation of the race while cars sat on the dummy grid. Race three was a confusing affair, with a Safety Car start on a mostly dry track before a red flag after just three laps which deemed the race a non-points affair.
“Bathurst is always fun to go racing around, but this weekend definitely challenged that notion at times,” said Taylor.
“It just wasn’t safe to go racing and even towards the end of race one it started to get worse, and I wasn’t to keen on having an accident, so we brought it in early. It’s disappointing of course that we couldn’t go racing a bit more this weekend but with the conditions I feel like the right calls were made.
“Our attention turns to the Gold Coast now and I couldn’t be more excited to get back to the streets of Surfers Paradise and enjoy a home race.”
The 2022 Carrera Cup season will wrap on the streets of the Gold Coast from October 28-30.
Photography by James Smith