Bathurst's Mount Panorama legend took off in a cloud of dust Racing on Bathurst's Old Vale Race Circuit track, circa 1931, was a dusty and dangerous affair. It was the early 1930s and on one side of an imaginary line on the gravelled Vale Rd, Bathurst, were horses and carts. On the other were motorcycles reaching speeds of up to 144km/h on the main straight. It was hi-octane entertainment for spectators just as the motor-racing fans flocking to Mount Panorama this weekend will be counting from the annual Bathurst 1000 speedfest. But the track where Craig Lowndes is out to claim his sixth title is a far cry from its predessessors and a long time coming. Even 75 years after the first motor race around scenic hills overlooking Bathurst, just how local and state government negotiations turned what was planned as a tourist road into a motor racing circuit remain a mystery. Bathurst mayor Martin Griffin had envisaged a tourist drive around what was then known as Bald Hills from the early 1930s. In 1934, local woman Kathleen Walsh won 10 shillings for her winning suggestion of Mount Panorama in a Bathurst Council competition to rename the hill. As Ford and Holden compete against other marques for the first time in 15 years on the 6.2km Mount Panorama circuit this weekend, the picturesque road celebrates 75 years of motor racing. Alfred Barrett leads the pack out of Mt Panorama's Hell Corner in his staight-eight Alfa Romeo 2300 Monza in 1949. It is also 50 years since the first running on the track of the 500 mile (now 1000km), events that made Peter Brock a household name, with nine wins from 30 starts between 1972 and 1987. Bathurst had hosted motor cycle races since 1911, when two street circuits opened. Both started and finished at Kelso. By 1931 police pressure to close streets to racing limited events to a 11.5km track from Perthville along Vale Rd. Races ran anticlockwise around the gravel track for the first two years, taking riders around hairpin bends into the afternoon sun. Speeds on the main straight reached 144km/h as dust clouded visibility, providing first class entertainment. The road did not close during races, but was divided by an imaginary centre line with horses and carts passing on the other side. Race popularity grew as the event attracted the state's best riders, with 1932 gate takings doubling over the previous year as Bathurst enjoyed an influx of visitors for the Easter event. Sidecar racing in Bathurst's early days. In dry years, dust from the bikes was so thick that riders used the tops of telegraph poles to navigate sections of the course, which Don Bain dominated over its seven-year history. The event ran clockwise from 1934-37, but as road conditions deteriorated the Vale circuit faced a limited future. Griffin persuaded NSW minister of works Eric Spooner to provide funds to construct a tourist road along the crest of Mount Panorama in 1935, arguing the project would provide employment in the prolonged economic depression. But that year a proposal from the Light Car Club of NSW to use the tourist road as a motor racing circuit won broad public support. Work on the tourist road began in late 1936, and the next year the Light Car Club presented its aims for the circuit to Bathurst Council. Bathurst city engineer Hughie Reid designed a road with the hairpin bends and tight corners that would provide exciting motoring, and Griffin officially opened Mount Panorama Scenic Drive on March 17, 1938. A month later, on April 16, 1938, Mount Panorama attracted 20,000 spectators to its first race, the Australian Tourist Trophy. A trio of Mini Cooper S racers fly down the mountain in 1966. A Datson 1600 takes a bend on three wheels in 1971. Known as Waluu by indigenous Wiradjuri Aborigines, who used the Skyline and McPhillamy Park vantage points to survey tribal lands, the area was farmed by the McPhillamy family before the scenic drive opened. From Easter 1939 Bathurst Council directed race circuit revenue towards the cost of laying bitumen around the track, and in May 1939 the NSW Light Car Club proposed a race on Eight Hour Day. The car club asked the local Chamber of Commerce to raise £800 from businesses to cover prize money, after Orange business people offered £1000 in prize money when Orange Council agreed to provide a track if the race venue was moved from Bathurst. Gouburn Light Car Club had organised a similar offer, perhaps enthused by reports that bank deposits by Bathurst businesses after the Easter fixture rose 30 to 40 per cent over 1937 takings. One service station operator reported selling 1200 gallons of petrol in one day. Bob Jane's Ford Cortina wins the 1964 Bathurst 500. Allan Moffat (left) and Colin Bond go 1-2 in 1977, another legendary finish for the track. The first light car 500-mile endurance event was run on Victoria's Phillip Island in November 1960. The Armstrong 500, then the biggest and richest motor race in Australian history, sponsored by hydraulic shock absorber manufacturers Armstrong York Engineering, attracted 47 cars. Marques including Morris, Austin, Fiat, Ford, Vauxhall and Volkswagen competed in the 167 lap event. When the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit was damaged in 1962, from 1963 the race moved to Mount Panorama, where tyre merchant Bob Jane and "bush engineer"" Harry Firth were the first team to complete the full race distance, winning Class C in their Ford Cortina GT on October 6, 1963. The Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 this year has attracted 29 V8 Supercars, adding Nissan and Mercedes Benz to the line-up for the first time since 1994. The starting grid at the 1968 Hardie-Ferodo 500. A bird's-eye view of Mt Panorama in 2010. Picture: Adam Taylor Source: News Limited Fans cheer home Team Vodafone's Jamie Whincup/Paul Dumbrell as they take the 2012 Bathurst 1000 motor race.