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Feature News Richard Craill October 8, 2020 (Comments off) (1225)

OUR TOP FIVE BATHURST DRIVES

THE BATHURST 1000 is filled each year with remarkable moments and performances that become memorable for years to come – but what ones stand out to the TRT team? We posed ourselves the question; what stands out as the best, or your favourite, Bathurst drives. We got some cracking answers.

WORDS: Richard Craill
NOMINATIONS: Tony Schibeci, Mark Walker, Dale Rodgers, Richard Craill
IMAGES: Mark Walker, supplied

THERE was no set criteria to our chase for Bathurst driving excellence; it could be a famous drive or something more personal, memorable only to the individual or a few others around them.

That’s the joy of Bathurst and the Great Race – there’s so many moments.

Listen to the full discussion of our top five Bathurst drives in the latest edition of the On the Grid Podcast, available now!

We start with the drives at number five..

FIFTH PLACE

DALE – GLENN SETON IN THE RAIN, 1987

A YouTube favourite, Dale loved the drive that arguably put the baby-faced assassin on the map – hustling the turbocharged DR30 across the top of the mountain with all of the lock and none of the grip.

TONY – MOSTERT / MORRIS, 2014

Schibecs first offering was the remarkable comeback performance by Chaz Mostert and Paul Morris in the 2014 Great Race, one that set up a finish for the ages as the young-gun hunted down and passed an out-of-fuel Jamie Whincup with just a few kilometres to go.

MARK – LARRY PERKINS, 1995

Larry’s burn from the stern got it’s first mention here as Mark’s fifth-placed offering. Loved the fact that did it with minimal Safety Car interventions and from a lap back, and that while Ingall contributed he also lost time while talking on racecam – getting him banned from that!

RICHARD – ALLAN SIMONSEN, 2007

One from left field that almost landed on Steven Johnson’s similarly remarkable drive the same year, but I loved the fact that in the rain, the acknowledged GT ace was as mighty as people who had been driving Supercars for decades, despite limited experience. A big drive and memorable for many reasons, personal and professional.

FOURTH PLACE

DALE – JOHN GOSS, 1974

A memorable victory for the privateers, Dale loved Gossy’s plucky performance alongside Kevin Bartlett in the McLeod Ford Coupe in the sodden ’74 classic. After the mighty HDT failed with their otherwise dominant Toranas, this was the car left to pick up the pieces for the Blue Oval.

TONY – PETER BROCK, 1979

At fourth for Tony was Brock’s dominant performance in the 1979 Great Race, winning by six laps, leading every lap and setting the lap record on the final lap. It’s memorable for all of those reasons and more, which is why Schibecs easily put it in his top five.

MARK – CRAIG LOWNDES, 2010

When Mark Skaife’s back gave way at the midpoint of the 2010 Great Race, Craig Lowndes jumped in the car not knowing at the time that he wouldn’t get back out until he crossed the line. 79 unbroken laps in the car saw CL beat home his teammates for a famous, gutsy victory.

RICHARD – CRAIG LOWNDES, 2010

Matched Mark here – CL’s remarkable 2010 efforts get the double mention with RC putting CL fourth on the list.

THIRD PLACE

DALE – ALLAN MOFFAT, 1971

Powering the mighty Phase III GTHO Falcon to an impressive victory, Moffat’s ’71 win came despite what appeared to be a beer carton blocking much of the radiator grille at the end of the race. A famous Ford win at a time when big Al owned the Mountain.

TONY – JACKY ICKX, 1977

The famous Ford 1-2 beating of the field in 1977 saw Tony single out six-time Le Mans 24 Hour champion and Grand Prix winner Jacky Ickx for praise thanks to his role in getting the Moffat Falcon to a point where Moffat could lead home teammate Colin Bond in that remarkable finish.

MARK – RICKARD RYDELL, 1998

The only two-litre Bathurst drive to make the list, Rydell’s impressive performance in the works Volvo was especially apparent in qualifying, when he smashed the field by more than a second. Held off Matt Neal in the closing stages in what was then one of the closest racing finishes in race history and a famous win for Volvo. Volvo: They’re boxy, but they’re good.

RICHARD – PETER BROCK, 1985

Brock had a habit of having the best machinery at Bathurst, but in 1985 the Jaguar’s were the class of the field. That didn’t stop the King, though: hunting down the British cars sans front and rear windows in his Mobil Commodore. Failed to finish, yes, but possibly did as much for the Brock Bathurst legacy as any of his most dominant victories.

SECOND PLACE

DALE – PETER BROCK, 1979

Like Schibeci, the relentless domination of Brock’s ’79 Great Race triumph saw it worthy enough for Dale to elevate it to second position in his top five list. No the competition wasn’t strong and only a mechanical was likely to stop the charge of Zero Five: But no matter – a memorable, crushing drive solidified by the lap record on the final lap for good measure.

TONY – JOHN FITZPATRICK, 1976

A cracking memory nominated by Schibecs here, with British driver Fitzpatrick limping home the Torana he shared with Bob Morris in a tense finish that saw a flying Colin Bond hauling in the hobbled, smoking Ron Hodgson Motors entry in the closing stages. There were tears in pit lane and stress everywhere in a particularly tense finish when reliability often ruled the results on the Mountain.

MARK – CHAZ MOSTERT, 2014

Was this the Greatest, Great Race? It’s hard to argue that it isn’t right up there. A day of drama was bookended by Jamie Whincup, who scythed his way through the field early in brilliant fashion before dramatically running the thing dry at the end in the well-documented circumstances. Enter stage left, Chaz Mostert, who rebounded from his FPR Falcon being fenced to haul in Whincup and pass him at the Elbow with half a lap to spare, in one of the race’s most dramatic moments of all time. Superb.

RICHARD – GREG MURPHY, 2003

The dominant Sunday was one thing – he and Rick Kelly led most of the race including all but eight of the final 61 laps – but it was the famous ‘Lap of the Gods’ that sealed this deal. There’s nothing more challenging or impressive than a Bathurst shootout lap and Murphy’s famous 2003 effort will go down in history forever as perhaps the best ever, if not just for the time – but by how far ahead it moved the goal posts over a field that was already lapping at record pace. That it took nearly a decade to overhaul the time shows how impressive this was.

FIRST PLACE

MARK, TONY, DALE – CRAIG LOWNDES, 2006

Almost unanimously (it was just outside the top five on Craill’s list), Craig Lowndes’ emotional drive to victory in the 2006 race topped the lists of three of the four lists presented – and this happened without any prior planning. Pursued by Rick Kelly, the pair traded fastest laps in the closing stages, driving as hard as they could without making a single mistake. Relentless pressure and the weight of everything going on around him failed to stop Lowndes, who finally secured his second Great Race win ten years after his first. He would win five of the next ten from there.

From the emotional moments of standing with Bev Brock on the grid, to driving the ’72 Bathurst winner before the race to being asked if he was even OK to start, this was a flawless performance from Lowndes as impressive mentally as it was in the execution of his formidable talent on the big hill. Given the circumstances around it, the pressure he faced in the race and outside of the cockpit and the storyline playing out, this is one of the great performances.

RICHARD – LARRY PERKINS, 1995

Craig Lowndes, ironically, plays a role in the other drive nominated for top spot – it was he who hit Larry Perkins’ Castrol Commodore on the rush to Hell Corner as the 1995 classic got underway, setting in motion a train of events that would culminate in one of the greatest comeback stories in Bathurst history.

Placed a lap down by the Winfield / Gibson Motorsport Commodore of Mark Skaife and Jim Richards just before the first round of pit stops, things looked bleak for Perkins and co-driver Russell Ingall but a plan to drive flat-out for the entire distance and see how things played out slowly saw things coming their way; culminating in the remarkable sequence of events in the closing stages as Perkins dispatched Alan Jones on conrod, then Brad Jones and ultimately Glenn Seton, stranded on the side of the road on the exit of Griffins bend. Against the odds and in typical no-BS Perkins style, this was a blinder.

THE FANS

Here’s what the TRT followers on Social Media had to say about their favourite Bathurst drives.

Richard Craill (administrator)

Working full time in the motorsport industry since 2004, Richard has established himself within the group of Australia’s core motorsport broadcasters, covering the support card at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix for Channel 10, the Bathurst 12 Hour for Channel 7 and Porsche Carrera Cup & Touring Car Masters for FOX Sports’ Supercars coverage. Pretends to be a PR guy / Journalist and sometimes photographer to make ends meet when not yelling at a television in a padded room.

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