The Bucket List Episode 3: Down Under Thunder

The Australian Supercars series is an absolute riot. Flame-spitting V8 touring cars with 600 horsepower and no driver aids, and drivers with no ****s to give. If there's any motorsport series that embodies a philosophy of close-quarters combat, this is it, and the legendary Mount Panorama Circuit is the ultimate battleground. Two long straightaways, a tight hillclimb and a twisting descent; this circuit is a handful at the best of times. In a wild, old-school touring car with no driver aids and little in the way of downforce, you need your wits about you just to survive. But if you can get it right, these cars offer a challenge (and a soundtrack) you won't really get anywhere else, and there's a certain thrill that comes from mastering a difficult track with a long history.

In the third race of my Bucket List, I went to Mount Panorama for a ten lap Supercars race. Once again, I'd give myself an extra challenge, starting fifteenth and aiming to finish as high as I could. As it happens, when I wasn't locking the brakes and struggling to tame the wheelspin, I was getting brake-checked by the AI, so in the end I couldn't get higher than eighth. Put simply, the drivers who take on the mountain in actual races are probably not getting paid enough.

If you're interested in holding Supercars races of your own on Assetto Corsa, head on over to https://v8scorsa.weebly.com/ and download their Supercars mod. This contains the Ford Falcon and Mustang, two generations of Holden Commodore and the Nissan Altima. You can also download livery packs for these cars on the site.

The Bathurst I used for this race was by ACU, and can be downloaded from http://www.mediafire.com/file/42tfnynvmbn47kd/acu_bathurst_1.01.7z/file. Since then, I have switched to a FM7 conversion by Terra21 and Jim Lloyd. You can download it from https://www.mediafire.com/file/y4scpcytw22l95v/bathurst_fm7.rar/file.