Just thought I would throw this into the subject, taken from the Bathurst 24hrs website. The outright winners (1st and 2nd place) of the group E cars were two Celica's
'Two near-standard Toyota Celicas have finished first and second in their class in the grueling Bathurst 24 Hour race last weekend.
The 1.8-litre Celicas beat cars with engines as much as three times larger, due to superior handling, braking and reliability.
The winning Celica took out Class E by more than nine laps.
Both road-registered Celicas were driven to Bathurst and then back to Sydney after the race on Monday, none the worse for wear.
In 24 hours of racing at maximum revs, the Celicas twin-cam engines used only 250ml (a quarter of a litre) of oil each.
The Celicas used the same brake pads throughout the race and needed just two replacement front tyres each to complete the round the clock marathon.
Car owner Colin Osborne, who shared the winning Celica SX with John Roecken and Trevor Keene, said the cars required little more than refueling during the race while their rivals replaced components regularly.
The class-winning Celica completed a total of 2708.87km the distance between Melbourne and the Cape York Peninsula in the course of a single day.
It completed 436 laps of the daunting Mount Panorama circuit at an average speed of 112.62km/h.
Apart from mandatory safety equipment, the Celicas only differ from those on the showroom floor in having minor suspension and exhaust modifications. They also use racing brake pads.
The cars are close to standard and we basically didnt touch them during the race, said Mr Osborne, who won last years Australian Production Car Championship outright driving the same Toyota Celica SX.
The Celica was one of the smallest capacity cars in the race so we lost a bit of ground to the big V8s going up the hill, but we were blowing the other cars away in the twisty stuff across the top of the mountain.
Its just amazing to use only a quarter of a litre of oil in such a demanding race and we finished without a scratch, so the car is basically ready to do another 24 hours.
Osborne Motorsport is an amateur team, using only volunteer helpers to prepare the Celicas and tend them at race meetings. '
Group E at the 24hrs consisted of the following
Honda S2000
Toyota Celica SX
Honda Integra Type R
Holden Commodore VX SS
Ford Falcon BA XR6 Turbo
Alfa Romeo 156 GTA
A very impressive result given the competition and a damn fine race to watch (even if I did have to watch it at 3 in the morning)
