History
Race History
Mount Panorama at Bathurst is 210 kilometres west of Sydney and is the focal point of Australian Motor Racing. The six kilometre anti clockwise track is normally a public road and was first used in 1938, with Easter Sunday motorcycle racing. However, World War II intervened, and racing didn't resume until 1947, with the Australian Grand Prix. Further Grand Prix meetings were held in 1952 and 1954. However, the feature event of the Mount Panorama circuit is the Bathurst 1000, held in October each year for touring cars and the track has undergone many changes in the interest of safety over the years.

The Great Race was first held in 1960 at Phillip Island as the Armstrong 500. The race was originally over 130 laps or 500 miles and was originally conceived as the ultimate endurance test of production cars. The early races were separated into classes according to buying price, that way the public knew what their buying dollar would bring in terms of performance and reliability. Bob Jane and Harry Firth were the stars of the early races winning in a Falcon and Mercedes.

The race moved to Mt Panorama in 1963 after the track at Phillip Island, in Victoria, needed resurfacing after the 1962 race. The original line of thought was that Bathurst was made for small cars because the big V8s struggled due to excessive wear of tyres and brakes. But the Mini Cooper S victory in 1966 was in fact the last time a normally aspirated 4 cylinder car has taken outright honours at Bathurst.

The following year a V8 finally won, the XR Falcon GT of Firth and Fred Gibson. Holden scored its first win the next year in a Monaro and in 1969 as well. Allan Moffat then dominated the race in 1970 and 1971 to create the Falcon GTHO legend.

Holden had by this stage dropped the V8 from its racing program to race a light weight car powered by a six cylinder, triple carburetted engine, the LJ Torana XU-1. Peter Brock won in 1972 thanks to its superior fuel economy and handling in the wet conditions.

Bathurst was now seen as the most important race to car companies with the catch phrase being, "Win On Sunday, Sell On Monday". With that in mind the Big Three (Ford, Holden & Chrysler) set about making Bathurst specials, race cars to be sold as road cars. Ford had the Phase Four Falcon GTHO, Holden the XU-2 (a V8 powered LJ Torana) and Chrysler had the Charger V8. An article about these developing Supercars saw the government ban such projects and these Supercars became stillborn.

In 1973 the race changed to 163 laps or 1000 kilometres, hence the name. Meanwhile Brock looked set to win again in 1973 until his car ran out of fuel to allow Moffat to win in a XA Falcon GT. The return of the Holden V8 to racing saw wins in 1975 and 1976. Moffat then engineered the classic Ford 1-2 victory in 1977 but after Brock returned to the Holden Dealer Team he won from 1978 - 1984, the exception being in 1981when Dick Johnson won a shortened race (120 laps). The race was stopped after Bob Morris and Christine Gibson in XD Falcons collided at McPhillamy Park to cause a multiple pile up. After the 1981 race the track was widened at McPhillamy Park to allow crashed cars to leave the race track.

A Dick Johnson crash in qualifying, when his car went through the trees at Forrest Elbow in 1983, prompted safety fences to be installed all the way around the circuit and the pit entrance moved from Pit Straight to the end of Conrod Straight.

By the end of 1984 the Bathurst race was no longer a production car race, the cars were looking more like sport sedans, so a change was needed to renew public interest. The advent of Group A in 1985 saw the demise of the Ford Falcon, Nissan Bluebird, Mazda RX7 and the Chevrolet Camaro replaced with Jaguars, BMWs and Volvo Turbos. The BMW, despite winning the Australian Touring Car Championship, ran second to the Tom Walkinshaw Jaguars in 1985.

Allan Grice returned the Commodore to the winners list in 1986. A fatal race accident on Conrod Straight in the 1986 race, when Mike Burgmann struck the Bridgestone bridge, added the Caltex Chase to the circuit, to not limit the speed down Conrod Straight but to reduce the length of time cars travelled at high speed. The subsequent addition of the chase reduced the number of laps. The Bathurst 1000 now comprises 161 laps, in all more than 6 hours of fast and furious motor racing.

The Ford Sierra Turbo arrived in 1987 to win the race (later disqualified) but despite being the fastest car at that time it was also unreliable. Turbos were a lap to lap proposition, but despite the high attrition rate of Sierra race cars they won in 1988 and 1989. In 1990 a Commodore won due to all the leading Sierras breaking down.

By 1991 Nissan had fully developed the ultimate Group A race car, the twin turbo six cylinder 4WD Nissan GT-R. Nissan won twice, in 1991 and in 1992 when torrential rain lashed the circuit and caused chaos as cars on slick tyres spun off the circuit at an alarming rate. The race was red flagged after the 143rd lap only for the sun to reappear within ten minutes! But their dominance caused a change in the rules again.

A return to the old Holden - Ford V8 war was hoped to renew interest in touring car racing. By 1993 turbos were no more and Larry Perkins became a hero by beating former Nissan drivers, Jim Richards and Mark Skaife. In 1994 Johnson and John Bowe won the race in a Falcon over a 20 year old rookie, Craig Lowndes, and in 1995 Perkins reaffirmed his hero status when he drove from last place to win.

The 1996 race commenced in a downpour, but 22 year old Craig Lowndes and 24 year old Greg Murphy dominated, becoming the youngest drivers to win, and Lowndes became only the second driver, after Peter Brock, to win the Touring Car Championship, Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 in the same year, all in his rookie year.

But this is part of what makes the Bathurst 1000 remain one of Australia's most popular motor races, bringing tens-of-thousands of visitors to the city of Bathurst for the October long weekend.