MOTORSPORT: Bathurst 1000's youngest finisher

Provided Mildura teenager Cameron Waters (pictured) qualifies for the Great Race in the fifth of the Kelly Brothers Holden Commodores he is to share with television personality, Grant Denyer, he will make history as the youngest -- at 17 years two months and six days -- when the lights at Mt Panorama go green at 10am Sunday.

Waters, who is leading the Australian Formula Ford Championship, has gained his seat in the wildcard entry by winning the Shannons Supercar Showdown reality TV competition on the Seven Network's digital channel 7mate against nine other young drivers.

He will take the honour of being the youngest driver in the Bathurst 1000 from Paul Dumbrell, who was 17 years, two months and 13 days when he made his debut in the race on November 14, 1999.

Another driver was 17 years, two months and 14 days -- a day older than Dumbrell -- when he lined up for the 1991 Bathurst 1000. He was, and still is, Bryan Sala, and he has one up on Dumbrell -- he's the youngest driver to have finished the Great Race.

Sala (and co-driver Graham Lusty) crossed the finish line 11th but were promoted to 10th in their Ford Sierra RS500 after another Sierra entered (but not driven) by Bathurst legend Allan Moffat was excluded from the results on a minor technical irregularity.

Sala is a largely forgotten man in Australian motorsport.

The announcement that Waters had won the drive with Denyer ran to more than 4000 words and included a list of eight young drivers in the Bathurst 1000 over the years -- but made no mention of Sala.

Those named were Waters, Dumbrell, Rick Kelly (18 in 2001), Shane Van Gisbergen (18 in 2007), Jason Bargwanna (18 in 1990), Todd Kelly (19 in 1998), Jamie Whincup (19 in 2002), Tony D'Alberto (19 in 2005) and Craig Lowndes (20 in 1994).

At first glance we wondered if those compiling that list had included only young drivers in the V8 Supercar era, but Bargwanna's debut was a year before Sala -- and well before Australian touring car racing became V8 Supercars.

Sala had raced at Bathurst a year earlier than his debut in the Great Race, at the wheel of a Lotus Cortina in a support race in 1990. He'd had a racing licence since he was 14, when he made his debut at the Mt Leura hillclimb at Camperdown, Victoria -- driving a monstrous Formula 5000 openwheeler!

His father ruffled the feathers of CAMS at the 1989 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, displaying a sign that said: "Bryan Sala -- youngest driver ever at a Formula One Grand Prix?" It was only in a support race, and there was the question mark -- but it inflamed tensions between officialdom and the Salas that seemingly still exists.

Sala only did one more Bathurst 1000 -- in 1992 with Kevin Weeks. He drove several stock car races at Melbourne's Calder Park Thunderdome but then sat out of the sport for 15 years.

In recent years he has returned, driving F5000s -- his own Matich A50 that won the 1971 Australian GP and 1972 Gold Star, and the Elfin MR8 of the Elfin Heritage Centre's Bill Hemming. Sala has also campaigned the famous old Monza of the late Melbourne identity, Lou Molina.

And still sitting in the Sala automotive workshop in Dandenong is the Sierra in which he made Bathurst history, awaiting restoration. That Sierra has plenty of other history to it too. It was driven by F1 world champions Alan Jones and Denny Hulme, as well as the sons of a triple world champion, Geoff and David Brabham.

It was acquired from another legend across the Tasman, Kenny Smith, the 70-year-old Kiwi who Sala now occasionally finds himself racing against in the F5000 ranks.

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