Lockdown is a frustrating time to be a racing driver, especially when you are leading a national championship.
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But that's the COVID-stalled situation for not one but three Canberra drivers, all of whom are currently leading different national series but with no firm prospects of collecting the silverware.
At a time when the ACT is arguably producing some of the fastest drivers in the country across multiple motorsport categories, all nationally-focused motor racing and rallying is on hold waiting for the first clear signs of when border restrictions will ease and the lights go green.
Zach Bates, 17, had managed to juggle his Year 11 schoolwork and a burgeoning motorsports career so well that this year he had led two very hard-fought racing series - the NSW Formula Ford championship and the Toyota 86 production championship - before the pandemic shutters went down across the country.
In his most recent race in Townsville - against a packed field in identical cars - he was the youngest driver there but won everything over the weekend, leaving the Queensland round with a maximum 300 points and an 86-point lead in the national series.
Now he's working at Fyshwick Bunnings part-time, running the hills around his parents' home and mountain-biking with his cousins and mates to keep fit, watching for any fresh easing of restrictions which could get him back to the racetrack.
"Basically the racing season for me barely got started and was going well when everything stopped," he said.
"But you just have to stay positive and wait it out. We're still not sure what's going to happen because there needs to be a set number of races held to call it a championship."
Like many drivers, he has a racing simulator set up at home and he finds that while it keeps his reflexes sharp, it can never replicate the real thing.
"I spend a bit of time on it [the simulator] but not too much because it does your head in," he said.
"Motor racing is a really physical thing to do, especially in an open wheeler [racing cockpit]; there's the noise, the smells, and and loads on your body, it's all happening around you.
"If I spend too much time on the sim, I find I start to really miss the real thing too much."
Canberra's Cameron Hill was enjoying a stellar start to the year with wins at Sandown (Vic) and Tailem Bend (South Australia) and an equal first at Townsville in the opening three rounds of the Porsche Carrera Cup series.
Now like many others, he's wondering what happens next because there needs to be two more rounds to finalise the series and declare a champion.
The Carrera Cup racing series usually runs hand-in-glove with the V8 Supercar series which has a night round scheduled under lights in Sydney in late October.
However, many of the Porsche cup competitors are Queensland-based so in fairness to those drivers - many of whom are part-time, not professional like the Supercar racers - the quarantine period required when they return home ruled that out.
"We're staying busy at the workshop; we're finding there are always lots of little things to do that you never really get time to do during a busy racing season," he said.
"And I'm trying to use the time productively, doing a lot of planning for when things open up, thinking ahead, making calls to lots of people.
"We're also building a special project car for the Bathurst six-hour endurance race next Easter; it's still a secret but we think we can give it a really good crack."
Harry Bates, Canberra's reigning Australian rally champion, is often based up in Sydney but when the COVID lockdown threatened, he headed back home to stay with his parents - and ended up in lockdown in the ACT.
Bates won the two rounds of the Australian Rally Championship held so far his year before the borders began shutting in response to the COVID threat and progressively, events planned around the country were called off.
Now the only hope to finish the rally season and declare a national champion is going to be a Cooma-based rally, the Kosciuszko Stages set down for December 11-12 and run by the Light Car Club of Canberra.
With such a big points lead in the championship, Harry Bates almost has to get to the finish - and far enough ahead of his younger brother Lewis, who is driving an identical Toyota Yaris all-wheel drive turbo car, to win the title again. Provided, of course, the rally goes ahead.