The Bathurst 1000, before the cleanup

Before the one-case-per-day rule, Mount Panorama was a lawless wasteland. I saw it all... and I wasn't even ten

The first time I saw pornographic pictures was at the Bathurst 1000 supercar race. I’m not entirely sure how old I was, younger than 10 I think? I was with my father on the top of the mountain somewhere near the esses. My dad was looking at the track, but I was transfixed by the shanty-like structure which was set up next to us.

They don’t allow it these days, but groups of people used to turn up to the track early, fence off the best viewing spots, put up a tarpaulin roof, and bring in a few old couches.

But it wasn’t the impressive lounge-room setup which grabbed my attention. It was the large esky one of the blokes had sitting next to his couch. It was adorned with a spectacular collage of pornographic pictures cut out from dirty magazines. It was meticulous work. He would have been hunched over those magazines for hours, carefully cutting around those perky boobs and artfully spread buttcheeks.

What was his artistic process, I wonder? Did he sit by the fire with his porno mag every night and decide which glossy woman made it onto his special esky? Was this a sexy job, or did it have the same mindless contentment one has knitting a scarf? Or painting a watercolour? If I saw this man today, I might ask these questions.

I was reminded of this memory over the weekend, as I once again attended the Bathurst 1000. For all my complicated feelings about the Supercar franchise, you can’t deny it’s an entertaining race. Also, things aren’t quite as feral as they used to be – though it’s still not exactly an evening at the opera. Unless, that is, there’s an opera about getting utterly wankered in the sun, while a car race happens in the background. If there is, I’d like to see it.

If you ever attend a Bathurst 1000, you’ll quickly discover that Mount Panorama is a bit like a reverse trifle: all the booze settles at the top. This is because most of the camping sections are up there. Thankfully, these days the campers have alcohol limits. You can only have one case of beer, per person, per day.

Let’s be clear – this is a profound amount of alcohol.

24 cans. Around 1,400 calories. 33 standard drinks. The ingredients for a hangover which would crack my skull open like an egg thrown at a brick wall.

But the one-case-per-day rule was introduced in 2007 to utter outrage. The backlash was so immense, there were serious concerns for public safety. The police presence doubled to 700 people that year, and they had a riot squad with a water cannon on standby.

But when I was a kid no such limits existed.

My memories from this time feel a little like scenes from an apocalyptic film.

You might think I’m being dramatic. But it felt completely lawless when, after the race finished, spectators gathered all the old couches onto a big pile and set them on fire. An enormous burning pillar surrounded by drunken, stumbling men. The last scene of Wicker Man without the wholesome singing. Couches are banned now. It’s the sort of rule you’d say was inexplicable and stupid had you not witnessed the pagan furniture ritual in person.

I could forgive this particular brand of loutishness as an adult. As the bible says, let she who has not recklessly started a bonfire when drunk cast the first stone. Or something. I haven’t read it.

But it’s all the weird sex stuff I could have done without. Yes, this means the porno esky. I cannot imagine lifting that thing into a car and thinking ‘this is a good thing to bring to a public event’. But there were other things too.

Like the man who jogged over to my dad in order to kindly inform him that there were strippers in one of the tents while we both walked from one viewing area to the next.

Or there was the time I watched a man in his 40s ask to get his photo with a group of grid girls. This herd of beautiful women were all in their early 20s, walking around the unpaved track in knee-high boots. Between the five of them, they weren’t wearing enough fabric to make a bath towel. The spectator crouched next to the women, put his arms around one of their knees, and then buried his face in her crotch.

Not all of the fans are cretins. Amongst my childhood memories are the men who made space so I could stand next to the fence, or who lent me their flags to wave on the last lap. As a young girl on a car racing track I was either indulged or treated as invisible. But then I became a teenager.

Things are different now, but In the 2000s women’s most publicised role in car racing involved being dressed in handkerchief-sized lycra and draped over cars. Given the above, is it any surprise that I had a grown man shout at me: ‘show us your tits’, when I was just 16-years old? I stopped watching the supercars soon after. Thankfully Formula 1 and Touring Cars (both with much more civil fan bases) filled the void. Car racing happily stayed a part of my life.

On returning to Bathurst as an adult, I don’t feel the same unease I had as a child. Perhaps I’ve just been inoculated against the shock of drunken men through sheer exposure. Or perhaps it’s just that the roughest edges have been shaved away over time. Good riddance, I say. You won’t see me mourning the porn eskies and couch pyres.

But while the chaos and casual sleaze of supercars slowly disappears, my memory of those events certainly lives on. Like rubber melted onto the tarmac after a particularly aggressive burnout.