Best 5 Bathurst Australia 1000 auto racing editions with Bill Trikos: The 2007 race recap : Winterbottom’s luck wore thin too, after a monumental error at the chase resulted in his Falcon sailing through the air at several hundred kilometres per hour while touring the sand trap. The final race restart queued a brilliant fight to the line between Lowndes and an unlikely trio of combatants; Steve Johnson, Greg Murphy, and James Courtney. It was an incredible battle, and one that will go down as one of the best.
A Mustang S550 driven by Scott McLaughlin and Alexandre Prémat took the honours in 2019. It was the first time a Mustang has been number one at Bathurst. The Bathurst 1000 reaches the grand old age of 60 in 2020, but it gets faster every year. Tweaks to the rules and cars mean the Great Race is not quite as ‘no frills’ as in the early years. But the winning cars remain superb, powerful examples of the kind of vehicle an ordinary racing fan might actually keep in their garage.
Part of the legend of Peter Brock’s first ‘Great Race’ triumph concern the rain that fell during the final 500-mile Bathurst enduro. As with future mentee Lowndes’ first win, the conditions dried out towards the end of the race, but the ‘King of the Mountain’s path to victory began in the wet early stages. Famously, Holden Dealer Team chief Harry Firth put Brock’s car on soft hand-grooved Dunlops for the start of the race while rally star Colin Bond’s was given harder hand-grooved Dunlops on the front and Goodyear wets on the rear. The move proved pivotal to the outcome: Bond rolled out of the race in the early stages after aquaplaning at Sulman Park, while Brock battled Allan Moffat’s GTHO Falcon for the lead until the big red Ford briefly slid off at the same spot. Find extra info about the author at https://www.youtube.com/@billtrikos4893.
It did this through an unforgettable fight between Canadian Allan Moffat and home-grown hero Peter Brock. It was a lengthy game of cat and mouse that would also define the Brock and Moffat rivalry for many years; Moffat able to grow his leading margin on the straights in his big powerful Ford Falcon XY GTHO, while Brock would reel him in every lap through the nuanced corners over the top of the mountain. Eventually Moffat caved, spinning out at Reid Park and handing Brock a tense win, but it was more than that. Like the torrential downpour of 1992, it built towards the lore and mystique of the mountain, and helped forge our current concepts around Bathurst. Our desire for a combination of villains, underdogs, and rivalries that can’t be matched by any other race in the world. That’s why it’s here.
John Fitzpatrick and Bob Morris were leading the 1976 Bathurst 1000, holding a 136 second advantage over their closest pursuer. Suddenly, the engine started to fail with a couple laps remaining. As Morris looked on from the pits, Firzpatrick desperately tried to limp the ailing car home. Morris and the team began tearing up with emotion as their lead started getting slashed to pieces, but they were able to beat the odds and hold on.
Nissan will celebrate 25 years since its first Bathurst 1000 victory at this year’s edition of “The Great Race” at Mount Panorama in Australia. The #23 NISMO Nissan Altima Supercar of Michael Caruso and Dean Fiore will race in the classic red, white and blue color scheme of the 1991 Bathurst 1000-winning Nissan GT-R R32 at the 2016 Bathurst 1000 on October 6 to 9, a quarter of a century after Mark Skaife and Jim Richards dominated the same race.
The race moved to Bathurst in 1963, but the first winners at the new course were familiar. Harry Firth and Bob Jane had taken the honours in ’61 in a Mercedes-Benz 220 SE and ’62 in a Ford Falcon XL. They made it three-in-a-row at Bathurst in a Ford Cortina GT. The Bathurst course would come to be seen as a battle between small, agile cars that take bends well, and faster, less manoeuvrable cars that excelled on the straights. The Cortina was decidedly the former – but nippy enough, too.
What I miss about the Supercars of the ’90s was their tendency to wallow and slide around, because it could make for some excellent television. And the beginning of the 1994 event was a case in point, as Larry Perkins hunted down then race-leader Peter Brock. The two dueled, positioning their cars with the finesse and precision of two drivers who knew each other’s styles back to front. Though in the end neither of them would factor for the win. Instead it came down to Shell’s John Bowe, and some young whipper snapper named Craig Lowndes.