NOT even two showers could fully erase the smell of kangaroo from Christopher Mies’ nostrils.
The factory Ford star has detailed the gruesome aftermath of the 250km/h incident that destroyed the front end of the #64 Ford Mustang GT3 in the early laps of the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour.
The two-time winner had the opening stint in the car he was due to share the car with Supercars star Broc Feeney and fellow international GT ace Dennis Olsen.
Mies was running seventh among the leading train of cars on the fourth lap of the race, and was just on the way up the hump in Conrod Straight when it happened.
“Basically, within thousandths of a second – a millisecond – the kangaroo showed up on the left,” he told selected media, including V8 Sleuth. “The moment I saw it was the impact.
“Honestly, I’m glad that we have such a safe racecar. It could’ve been much worse; if I imagine the whole kangaroo could have come inside – well, half of it did come inside.
“I’m glad I’m standing here now.
“It must have been very quick and just sudden because there was no pre-warning, no yellow flags or nothing, no radio message that there’s a kangaroo near the track, so I got caught by surprise, I think like everyone else, otherwise you would have slowed down.”
The impact was bad enough; then Mies had to figure out how to get the wounded Mustang safely stopped on the fastest part of the circuit, in the dark and blinded by blood.
“The issue was that I couldn’t see anything anymore. The windshield was fully smashed, and I was covered in blood and whatever is inside a kangaroo,” he explained.
“My eyes were full of blood and guts from the kangaroo, so I had to clean them first because I had no idea where I was.
“I looked through the side window, saw a wall and tried to go as close as possible to the wall on the left side.
“I saw the cars still coming from the rear, so I wanted to be in a safe place as much as possible, (so) that someone doesn’t see me and hits me again.”
The TV coverage showed a dazed Mies standing beside the car in the aftermath, but the German ace says he wasn’t in shock.
“I just had to throw up because the smell was incredible. I’ve already had two showers and I still have the smell in my nose,” he said.
“I can tell you the inside of a kangaroo doesn’t smell very nice.”
Mies’ incident was the worst in Bathurst 12 Hour history so far, but it is far from the only one.
It wasn’t even the only one in 2026; sunrise revealed that several other cars sported damage from contact with kangaroos in the dark early laps, albeit with less severe consequences than Mies’.
“To be honest, I think we should think about maybe having a later race start,” he suggested.
“Maybe instead of 5:50 in the morning, maybe something like 7-ish or 8 o’clock and finish later, or put on some big fences.
“In the end, we all want to race, right? And if we crash, we crash; the race is over. But to end the race because you hit an animal on track is never nice, especially in the first 10 minutes.”
Adding to Mies’ disappointment was that he was getting a good feeling from the car in his brief time in the race.
“The car felt mega,” he said. “I made up already two spots at the start and I had the feeling I had better pace than the Merc in front of me.
“He really struggled for grip. Maybe had lower tire pressures or whatever, but we really were on it.
“I was surprised that they were not really going away on top of the mountain, and I was still taking it easy, so it was all very positive.
“Even over the radio, I said, ‘guys, the race car is pretty good’.
“Obviously fuel is a big topic here in Bathurst, fuel strategy. You can already see that a lot of guys were doing lift and coast early in the race, so I just did the same.
“I think with all the chaos afterwards (ed: multiple Safety Cars in the early hours), obviously strategy comes into play and I think we are pretty good at that at HRT and Ford Racing.”
The early exit also means minimal race data from which to plot next year’s campaign, which will happen with the Evo version of the Mustang that debuts elsewhere in 2026.
“Maybe if we don’t win or be on the podium, it doesn’t matter; I would just love to do the whole race, learn for next year, see where our strength and our weakness is,” Mies said.
“You know, it’s our first time here with the car, so every lap counts. So that’s probably the most disappointing part.”