Bathurst 1000 organisers have cancelled the Top 10 Shootout for the first time in 44 years due to heavy rainfall at Mount Panorama.
Bathurst 1000 : Canceled | Shootout | Prize money
The 2022 Bathurst 1000 will be a motor racing event for Supercars held on the week of 6 to 9 October 2022. It will host the eleventh round of the 2022 Supercars Championship.
| Date | October 6–9 2022 |
|---|---|
| Location | Bathurst, New South Wales |
| Venue | Mount Panorama Circuit |
It will be held at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia and will feature a single 1000 kilometre race.
The event will be the 65th running of the Bathurst 1000, which was first held at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in 1960 as a 500-mile race for Australian-made standard production sedans, and will mark the 62nd time that the race was held at Mount Panorama.
Bathurst 1000 Canceled
Bathurst 1000 organisers have cancelled the Top 10 Shootout for the first time in 44 years due to heavy rainfall at Mount Panorama.
The session — which was to decide the top-10 grid positions for Sunday’s race — was scheduled to start at 5:05pm AEDT.
But Motorsport Australia officials spent over an hour deliberating whether to let the top 10 drivers from Friday’s first qualifying session take to the track to decide their starting order for Sunday’s race.
But it was deemed unsafe after the final Super2 and Toyota 86 series races were also canned, with rivers of water running on the track at times.
“Race Control has advised that the Supercars Top 10 Shootout has been cancelled due to extreme weather, leaving the track in an unsafe condition for competition,” a Motorsport Australia statement read.
Cam Waters will start from pole for the second time, having also secured the spot in 2020.
Shootout
Supercars drivers have thrown their support behind the decision to scrap the Top 10 Shootout for the 2022 Repco Bathurst 1000.
For the first time in history the single-lap dash for the Bathurst 1000 pole was called off after heavy rain soaked Mount Panorama.
Instead the first five rows of the grid will be determined by yesterday’s qualifying session, sealing pole for Cam Waters and James Moffat.
Because of the cancellation cost the other drivers the opportunity to improve their starting positions, there was largely a positive reaction to the decision made by race officials.
Waters admitted that he felt he had only done “half a job” to secure pole position for the Great Race but felt the right call was made to cancel the shootout.
“I feel like I have kind of done half the job,” said Waters. “Yesterday was great being quickest in the wet, it is obviously cool and you have the shootout to come but I respect the decision that was made. The shootout for me is one of the highlights of the year, getting into it and then putting it all on the line for a lap. I find that pretty exciting and I love it.
“The water on the track was crazy and it is not really down to safety, and the drivers do drive to the conditions, but it is more about the cars.
“In the shootout you put it all on the line and it is our egos driving it and if we end up in the fence and we tear the car up and then not be able to race, so that is probably the bigger issue for me.”
Bathurst 1000 prize money
This is in stark contrast to other big races where prize money is an integral part of the race’s promotion and attraction.
The Daytona 500 paid a little over $US2 million to the winner in 2022. First in the Indy 500 was $US3.1million. That’s about $4,000 and $6,000 per mile raced, respectively.
The Knoxville Nationals, the worlds richest sprintcar race, pays the winner $US175,000 for 50 half mile laps. That’s $US7,000 per mile.
But As far as I can find out, the world’s highest paying race, on a per mile basis, is the One Million at Eldora Speedway. Yes, it pays $US1 million of 101 laps of the half mile track. That’s $US50,000 per mile.
Also in Australia, the Australian Sprintcar Championship race pays $17,800 to the winner for 40 laps of a quarter mile track, or $1,780 per mile.
But If the Bathurst 1000 rewarded its winner on a per mile basis similar to the Aussie sprintcar title, the prize money would be….$1.1 million. Yep, $1.1 million.
So, what does the Bathurst 1000 winner get? I reckon its below $250,000. That is around $400 per mile.