In a different era, on a different continent at a different time of day, the sight that greeted Guy Smith was eerily reminiscent of that which presented itself to another Bentley boy 90 years ago. In both cases it was half-light – the last rays of the day disappearing for S C H ‘Sammy’ Davis, the first arriving for Smith – and they came across their respective scenes completely unsighted. Both were confronted with a rival’s car broadside across the track and had only the time it took their instincts to decide what to do next. And in the actions both took in that split second, someone else’s life was probably saved.

I won’t dwell further on the details of the 1927 White House accident, because it is one of the most famous events in Le Mans history. But as Smith flung his Bentley Continental GT3 into the notorious Dipper on lap six of this year’s Bathurst 12 Hours, he found Frank Stippler’s Audi R8 parked across the track, driver’s door towards the thundering Bentley. Actually there was a space on the left-hand side, but his trajectory rendered that escape route unavailable. All he could do was fling the car at the gap on the right, which although minutely widened by a Nissan faced with the same problem seconds earlier, still seemed an impossibly narrow space through which to thread 1.2 tonnes. “I was properly scared,” Smith told me afterwards, “not so much for me, but for Frank.” Less than 15 minutes into a 12-hour race, Bentley’s Bathurst, with one car already in last place and the other apparently about to wipe itself out between a rock wall and a hard Audi, seemed destined for disaster.

It takes about three hours to reach Bathurst from Sydney and, frankly, it’s a rubbish drive. On paper or Google Maps the route looks rather attractive as the Great Western Highway winds up and across the Blue Mountains to Katoomba, more than 1000 metres above the Pacific, and then descends to the plateau below. What you don’t see are the traffic, the speed limits, the police presence and the shockingly poor driving standards. After a 24-hour flight from the UK, you will likely arrive in the desperate hope that it proves a worthwhile destination.