Amid all of the endurance racing success my teammate Karl and I have had together – from a two-man victory in the Nürburgring 24 Hours to a league race triumph at Imola to a surprise podium in the Bathurst 1000 – one event has always eluded us.

In our five previous attempts at the Bathurst 12 Hours – run with GT3 cars around the same demanding Mount Panorama circuit as the 1,000-kilometer fall classic we once did well in – we had failed to finish three times, including my embarrassing first-lap crash in 2019 when I clipped a wall while driving down the mountain.

Our best finish in the race came last year, when we ended up eleventh. It was progress for sure, but also a disappointment to barely miss out on a top ten. And at a track that ranks as my favorite in all of sim racing, the inability to do well in this event felt like some cruel curse.

After years of struggling to even reach the top ten, and with the competition on iRacing getting stronger all the time, it was starting to feel like a top five in this race – not to mention a podium – was out of our reach.

And with limited racing experience over the past five months, getting up to speed for this year’s event would require a crash course – not literally, we hoped – of practice and preparation.

Getting Ready to Race

The first task was selecting a car, and for us, it came down to two options. On one hand, there was the Ferrari 296, which was ultra-stable over the mountain section but lacking in top speed on the straightaways, where most of the passing is done.

On the other, there was the Porsche 992, which I characterized last year as a “death trap,” particularly through the high-speed turn 10 at the top of the mountain. However, Karl and I were quick in the car during our testing this time around, and we thought we could find more stability without compromising our outright pace.

With a speedy but potentially snappy car selected, another challenge emerged as the race forecast came into focus. It showed a near-certainty of wet conditions at the start, with the chance for more rain showers throughout the race.

As a degreed meteorologist, I know better than anyone that forecasts aren’t always the most accurate, but in this case, it seemed smart to prepare for the possibility of rain, especially at this track where one small slip-up would likely leave our car in the wall.

When I first started practicing in the rain, years of muscle memory built at Bathurst seemed to fail me. The normal racing lines, covered by rubber that became slippery when wet, and dry-weather braking points didn’t work.

For all of iRacing’s realistic elements, including how moisture is modeled on the track surface, this was absolutely a time to be grateful that in the virtual world, we have a reset button, since I junked plenty of Porsches while trying to learn my way around in the wet.

Even after figuring out the lines, I was slow, especially once the rain stopped and the track began to regain grip. Searching for that speed is a skill that the best real-world racing drivers take years to master, and even with a reset button, I was unlikely to get there in only a week.

Our outlook entering this race seemed as grim as the weather forecast, and it was further dampened by what we saw in several official sprint races at the same track. Fast but hyper-aggressive drivers were making risky moves, leaving Karl and me both as victims with more crashed cars to show for it.

The prospect of speeding onto the mountain roads with 50 of those same drivers, in the wet and darkness, during Saturday’s endurance race didn’t inspire any confidence in our ability to succeed.

On the night before the race, Karl and I each did some final testing on our own in both wet and dry conditions. While neither of us suddenly felt like a rain master, we had both been able to complete laps without crashing, and we at least felt that our setup was stable and comfortable in the dry.

Informed by my own practice, I advised that we take a patient approach to all aspects of the race: patience in the rain to reduce the chances of a sudden snap if the car hit a slick spot; patience with not pushing too hard to find pace as the track dried out; and patience around other drivers who were unpredictable enough in the dry, let alone in the wet.

All of those things might mean losing time along the way, but this race, we felt, would be more about survival than speed. And with so many uncertainties, we didn’t set any lofty goals for a good result. Just finishing this year’s Bathurst 12 Hours would be an accomplishment on its own.

A Rainy Race Day

Loading into the event on Saturday morning, we found a wet track, as expected, with an updated forecast showing rain showers – possibly heavy ones – arriving within the first hour of the race.

But it was premature to think that far ahead. There was no guarantee we’d even make it past the first lap, and qualifying had always been a struggle for me in this race, with my last three attempts putting us 33rd, 34th, and 35th on the grid.

This time, driving in the damp, I logged a lap that felt close to my own limit in those conditions, but it left us starting in 23rd position. While that was a step up from my past form, it put us right in the middle of the field for the start, where any carnage was most likely to unfold.

As I took the green flag, I found a much more orderly alignment than I anticipated. Everyone, it seemed, was tiptoeing around in these conditions: truly uncharted waters for this event, being run in the wet for the first time.

Throughout that first hour, with no rain falling and the track progressively getting quicker, I abided by our First Rule of Patience and kept it safe and steady, even if that was a bit slow. That meant letting faster cars go by, tumbling our team down the running order to 30th place and beyond.

Karl was calm as usual on the radio, but in this stint, he had the added responsibility of providing weather updates with rain approaching the track. He was a truly excellent meteorologist, giving detailed descriptions of when and where the first heavy showers would hit. And when they arrived, they created chaos up and down the mountain, with more than a dozen cars pitting with damage or retiring altogether.

We survived that initial burst, climbing back as high as sixteenth. But as Karl and I planned our first pit stop and discussed the next round of heavy rain on the way, I fell victim to a corollary of impatience: a loss of concentration.

With no raindrops on my windshield, I forgot how wet the track still was and reverted to driving as I had at the start, pushing deeper into the turn-two braking zone. When I tapped the brake pedal and felt the car skating instead of slowing, I knew I was in trouble. A few agonizing seconds later, the car bounced off the outside tire wall, thankfully side-on to avoid offsetting our wheel alignment.

Frazzled as I drove up the mountain, I made a similar mistake at the deceivingly difficult turn 9, braking too late and pancaking the other side of the car against the wall there. In less than half a lap, I had incurred two incidents that could have shattered my confidence, and our chances of finishing the race.

We decided to pit the next lap and assess the damage. Three minutes and forty-three seconds’ worth, the crew reported to us.

In any other year, that much repair time would have effectively been a race-ender, as it would have been tough to finish well after such an early issue. But this year, it felt like a small price to pay for advancing out of the tricky first hour, when the rain had outright eliminated plenty of our competitors.

We opted to take all but one minute of the optional repairs, which cost us a lap to the cars we’d been racing against. And rejoining the track amid the next wave of heavy rainfall, I doubled down on my focus, determined not to end up with another equally damaged car – or worse – after that stint.

With downpours hitting the track every few laps, I got back to steady, safe driving, while other teams pushed past their limits. Nearly every lap when we passed the pits, we seemed to gain more positions as damaged cars sat in their stalls, awaiting extensive repairs.

The rain eventually cleared up but the carnage continued, and by the end of that stint, we were back inside the top 15, as if those earlier incidents had never even happened.

With Karl set to get in the car during our next pit stop, I walked him through a lap around the still-wet track, describing turn by turn where to brake, where to find grip, and where to avoid any puddles remaining on the tarmac.

And when I pulled in for that pit stop, we had no new damage and the first peeks of sunshine in the skies all race. We had reached the calm after the storm.

Our Climb Continues

Karl’s first stint came in challenging transitional conditions, running on wet tires but with a dry line forming and the track gaining speed every lap. Dutifully, he obeyed our Second Rule of Patience, never pushing too hard to find pace.

Halfway through that stint, the track was clearly dry enough for slick tires, so we pitted again to make the change. It still wasn’t easy driving; the dry line was barely one car width in the twisty section over the top of the mountain, and for anyone venturing off that line, the puddles on either side of the road could easily cause a spin. But Karl again handled that stint, plus another that followed, with masterful precision, never putting a wheel wrong.

Toward the end of that double stint, it appeared our next driver change would also line up with the next weather change. Checking the in-sim radar, another band of rain was moving in, including a few heavier cells in the mix.

I put my own meteorology training into practice, making a last-minute call for Karl to pit just before the rain spread across the south end of the track, including the tight mountain section that can be diabolical on slick tires in the wet.

Getting back in the car with rain falling and wet-weather tires equipped, I rediscovered the patience and focus that had worked well during my first two stints – or at least all but one lap of them.

Karl soon advised that heavy rain was imminent.

“Bring it on,” I told him.

It was a remarkable change of attitude, from my total discomfort in the wet earlier in the week to welcoming it as an advantage for us during the race. While I’m sure that I still wasn’t the fastest driver in those conditions, in an endurance race like this one, the wet periods reward smart and consistent driving above all else. It helps to have good communication between teammates, which Karl and I have established through the past ten years of racing together.

As that round of rain wrapped up, we found ourselves not just inside the top ten, but on the edge of the top five. And only halfway through the event, there was still plenty of time to move up more – or for our race to come crashing down.

The first opportunity for either outcome was when we, and the rest of the remaining runners, would switch back to slick tires. As I neared the end of my second stint, there were clearly dry sections of the track, but water still covered the road atop the mountain, including in turn 10.

Karl watched as another team pitted the lap before we’d need to, then put on slicks and almost immediately crashed their Corvette into a wall. That made our decision for us: we’d stay on wet tires, even if it meant having to stop again a few laps later for slicks, once the track had dried out a little more.

That changeover, along with our next driver swap as Karl again tackled the drying track, was as smooth as the first one this race, and Karl’s driving was even more remarkable this time. Threading the needle between puddles at the tricky turn 10 each lap – all in a car that we initially worried would never survive that section for 12 hours – he logged two stints of almost machine-like consistency, with his lap times rarely straying from the 2:07s.

I’d later tell him that these “boring hours” – when the radar was clear and the field had already been thinned out – were a key to our eventual success, making up time on the cars ahead and building bigger gaps over the cars behind.

Or most of them, at least. One team in a slightly dented Acura about a minute back was also running quick laps, and at their pace, they’d surely catch us by the end of the race.

We agreed not to change our approach – if they were going to get by us on speed alone, then it was inevitable no matter how we drove – but we kept an eye on them as the gap between us came down to less than 30 seconds.

With four hours to go, the race was finally on.

Speeding to the Finish

That deep into the race, it was incredibly time for my first dry stint of the day. While that sounds much easier to handle than the rain I’d endured earlier, I was quite nervous, especially after watching plenty of cars slip in the turn-10 puddles and crash.

That had cost not only those teams, including the former second-place runners, but also any unlucky teams around them who piled in when the track was blocked, like the third-place Porsche did at one point.

In those situations, Karl and I both practiced our Third Rule of Patience, going slowly and cautiously around any stopped cars, lest they make any sudden movements that might jeopardize our own race.

And it worked, as the misfortunes for others benefitted us. Eventually, we moved into a podium position – third place – as I prepared to get back behind the wheel.

To ease my concerns about driving on the mostly-but-not-totally dry track, Karl helpfully returned my favor from earlier in the race, giving me a corner-by-corner description of any lingering wet spots and how he was adjusting his approach to avoid them.

When I got in the car, I knew it would take a few laps to feel out the track, but after seeing the ease with which Karl had run strong lap after strong lap, I also expected to get up to speed in a hurry.

To my dismay, my first timed lap clocked in at a 2:09.5: a full two seconds off his pace. I closed the standings screen so I couldn’t watch the gap to the Acura behind us – now at under 20 seconds – continue to shrink.

As the laps went on, my pace picked up, first into the 2:08s and eventually some 2:07s, similar to what Karl had run.

Then, just past halfway through my stint, we caught a break. Karl noticed that the Acura team chasing us had made a long pit stop, losing almost half a lap. We never learned the reason – maybe damage repair, or a penalty, or perhaps a wheel disconnect for their active driver – but it gave us the breathing room we needed, locking down third place with no challengers close behind.

It would just take another three hours of safe driving to reach the finish.

With that in mind, Karl advised that I could back off on my pace if that helped reduce the chance of a mistake.

“We don’t need any laps in the 2:06s now,” he told me. (Take note, dear reader, that at the time, Karl had our team’s fastest lap of 2:07.200, and that achievement is always a point of pride between the two of us.)

Already in a rhythm that was producing consistent 2:07s by the end of the stint, I continued running those sorts of laps without an error. And then an opportunity presented itself.

With our car on the final laps of a fuel run, which is when we’d been the fastest all week, and the extremely speedy race-leading Acura team exiting the pits just in front of me, I pushed to go even faster while taking advantage of their draft, copying the strategy I used en route to our runner-up finish in the 2021 Petit Le Mans race.

As I completed lap 251, I asked Karl not to be upset since I had disobeyed his order: 2:06.958 was my latest lap time. On the following lap, I did even better, hitting a 2:06.798.

Of course, there was no consternation on his part. Despite our many Bathurst failures, in the times when we’ve made it this far into a race here, both of us are almost automatic, channeling our thousands of laps of experience and the stability of our setups into mistake-free driving.

That continued over a thankfully uneventful final two hours, with Karl and me alternating single stints until the finish. He managed to sneak into the 2:06s as well, and in the final laps, when a potential rain shower never materialized and the track continued cooling off, I one-upped my previous run with a new team-best lap of 2:05.909.

That was the final lap of the race, so it was rightfully overshadowed by an even greater accomplishment: against all odds, we had finished, and on the podium to boot in third place.

Our emotions were a combination of exhaustion, elation, and relief. We had conquered the elements we feared all week – from a snappy car to the worrisome weather to overly aggressive opponents – and achieved a result that we doubted was even possible.

Our Nürburgring win nine years ago remains our best overall example of endurance, taming that difficult track over 24 hours with just the two of us behind the wheel.

In league races, a runner-up finish in the NEO Endurance Series season one finale at Road Atlanta is still our most flawless performance to date, while the GES win at Imola may be our best show of strategy as a duo.

But given our haunted history in the Bathurst 12 Hours and the challenging weather we faced in this year’s event – including my own first time racing in the rain – our podium in this race now stands as our most satisfying endurance result together.

And it’s certainly the most anticipated, as our Bathurst curse was finally washed away with a little help from Mother Nature.