FIVE weeks ago, Bathurst beat James Moffat.
The veteran made an uncharacteristic mistake and crashed out of the Bathurst 1000, ending his and Cam Waters’ Great Race podium streak.
Moffat kicked himself for it but has now moved on. And this weekend’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst International represents a prime opportunity to get vengeance.
The 39-year-old has a 78-point National Trans Am series lead entering the season’s third-last race this afternoon. There’s every chance he’ll have clinched his maiden major motorsport title by the end of tomorrow.
“It’s always nice any time you get to come to Bathurst,” Moffat, who is believed to be under contract with Tickford Racing for next year, told V8 Sleuth.
“It’s sort of so close to the 1000 and with where we’re placed in the series, it’s good to come here and put our best foot forward.
“I’m looking forward to seeing what the cars are like to drive around here, I think they are going to be a lot of fun across the top of the Mountain.
“I’ve moved on from what happened in October. I can’t do anything about that now.
“I was hugely disappointed about it, in myself, at the time but I’ve got a little under 12 months to head back there in the Supercar and improve on our result.
“But really I’m just taking the same approach into this weekend that I have all year and that’s just one race at a time, try to do the best we can, and everything else will hopefully sort itself out from there.”
On the Trans Am side of things, Moffat has dominated this year although there has been an off-track rollercoaster of sorts.
Moffat and Garry Rogers Motorsport teammate Lochie Dalton were belatedly disqualified from the Winton round on technical grounds, only to later win an appeal and have their results reinstated.
Throughout the protracted process, Moffat’s form on-track has not wavered.
“I guess to be able to, in a way, do our talking on the track has been the way I wanted to go about it and I feel like we’ve done that pretty well,” he said.
His Bathurst International campaign started in style yesterday too, the #34 Valvoline Ford Mustang driver topping both practice sessions.
Trans Am qualifying will take place this morning at 9:25am AEDT.
