Hollywood star and all-round Aussie petrol-head, Eric Bana, had his childhood dream fulfilled when he finished tenth in his first race at Bathurst in an Mitsubishi Evo X with former V8 Supercar and Carrera Cup driver, Tim Leahy, and clothing magnate Peter Hill.

Bana, who tried to keep a low profile, had never driven at Mount Panorama and admitted to struggling the first time he did a lap of the 6.1-kilometre track in traffic in the team’s hastily-prepared Evo, which didn’t turn a wheel in anger until the first practice session.

The star of Chopper, Black Hawk Down and Troy wisely played himself in over three days of practice and racing, knocking some 20 seconds off his initial times, eventually getting down to a respectable 2:39 sec lap during the race, seven seconds slower than Leahy’s best, set during his storming drive to tenth place.

“My first lap of Bathurst was in the first session and it was a true baptism of fire, I think my first timed lap was a 2:58; there’s time to be made up everywhere,” Bana said.

After his first race stint the pressure on Bana eased. Having spent over one hour 20 minutes in the Evo, easily the longest race of his life to date, he improved his lap times by eight seconds by the end of the stint.

“It was pretty amazing, the first car I got to overtake was a Commodore so that felt pretty good,” quipped the Ford fan.

Towards the end of his second stint the Evo’s engine cut out at Forrest Elbow, a result of an ongoing overheating cam sensor problem and Bana just made it back to the pits.

“I felt like I could have stayed out longer; I wasn’t struggling concentration-wise, and I just tried to keep the pressure on myself so I wouldn’t have any brain fades,” he said.

A jubilant Bana hugged team members when Leahy crossed the finish line tenth outright and sixth in class. “Just to compete at Bathurst has been a bit of a dream for me and then to top it all off we finished in the top 10 outright,” he beamed.

Bana’s whose Hollywood schedule means he only races spasmodically (he has a Porsche 996 Cup Car) said he is “very realistic about his driving aspirations” and will race whenever he can fit it into his film commitments. But with four movies to come out in 2009, Bana says 2009 will be taken up with publicity tours around the world. He’d rather race.

Read a review of Eric Bana’s new doco Love The Beast