Six-time Repco Bathurst 1000 winner Larry Perkins highlighted an on-track display held at Bathurst earlier today featuring many of the significant models previously raced at the Mountain as the race celebrates 60 years.
Perkins completed laps of the famed race track in his 1993 winning Castrol VP Commodore, which has been recently been stunningly restored by his son Jack to pristine condition. Sharing with motorcycle ace turned four-wheel whiz Gregg Hansford, this VP Commodore is the last to take a win with a Holden motor.
Joining Perkins on track was Craig Lowndes in the Triple Eight Race Engineering Ford Falcon he drove to victory in 2006 alongside Jamie Whincup. It was an emotional win due to the passing of Peter Brock a month earlier, who mentored Lowndes throughout his career.
Fellow Triple Eight Race Engineering luminary Jamie Whincup was also completing the demonstration in the VE Commodore dubbed ‘Kate’. This chassis competed across two seasons, both of which were title winning campaigns for Whincup and a Bathurst win in 2012 partnered by Paul Dumbrell caps off an impressive life for this Commodore. To prove how special it is, Whincup retains this chassis.
Although the next three didn’t win the Great Race, all represent the international era thanks to the entrance of Group A regulations.
Dick Johnson failed to achieve the ultimate success at the Mountain in his Ford Mustang in 1985 and 1986, but it was a reliable beast keeping the Blue Oval hero in the game as the Sierra RS500 Cosworth beckoned. It finished a best of fourth in its two appearances at the Mountain.
The Holden VK Commodore marked the combining of Brock and Allan Moffat, arch enemies through the 1970s. Although the Bathurst campaign in 1986 started poorly when Moffat crashed at the top of the mountain, the duo finished fifth in what was arguably the Commodore’s strongest Group A season.
Finally, the Nissan Skyline HR31 completing laps was reliable as the GT-R awaited its debut two years later. Making its first start in 1988, the HR31 experienced a rough introduction to competition when Glenn Seton visited the sand trap on media day. Both retired early on the first visit, but later podium finishes provided the perfect lead in for the GT-R in 1990 and Nissan supremacy.
