Although the touring cars opened Eastern Creek Raceway in the form of the Nissan Sydney 500 in 1990, but it took a further two years until the maiden Australian Touring Car Championship to debut.
Now known as Sydney Motorsport Park for more than a decade, the Australian Touring Car Championship was in a weird era in 1992 as the Group A regulations were coming to an end and debate was rife about the future direction.
Some of the touring car stars had sampled Eastern Creek courtesy of the Winfield Triple Challenge, but regulation changes to even up the competition had been made since then.
Nissan’s Godzilla Skyline GT-R and the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 were preparing for a welcomed swan songs depending on what fans you spoke to.
Eastern Creek marked the sixth trip of nine for the 1992 Australian Touring Car Championship as the two Winfield Racing Nissans leading the way as young turk Mark Skaife held a seven-point advantage back to Jim Richards, while Glenn Seton was third a further 22 behind in the Peter Jackson Racing Ford Sierra.
It was a Shell 1-2 in the Peter Jackson Dash as Dick Johnson led polesitter John Bowe from the lead Holden of Larry Perkins.
Another challenger come race time was Tony Longhurst in the Benson & Hedges BMW M3 as the lighter, more nimble product was suited to the flowing Eastern Creek layout.
A massive amount of work by the Holden Racing Team allowed Tomas Mezera to take the start after a large crash at Turn 2 wrote the VN Commodore off in the lead up. A spare was implemented for the weekend.
It was Bowe making light work of team leader Johnson and the heavily restricted Nissan to take the lead, while Longhurst did likewise to follow the Shell Sierra in second.
Johnson was taken out of the battle after Perkins locked up and spun, collecting the lead Shell Sierra in the process.
Bowe was able to fight off the advances of Longhurst to seal victory, with Skaife third from Richards and Mark Gibbs driving the GIO GT-R.
The GT-Rs again made great leaps off the start in Heat 2, but Bowe maintained second from Gibbs and Richards.
A mistake from Skaife entering the front straight was all Bowe needed and he took the second win of the day.
Despite Longhurst’s best efforts it was Skaife finishing second ahead of the BMW.
Skaife left Eastern Creek with an extended margin of 13-points to Richards, while 24 further back was Seton.
Longhurst and Bowe’s results didn’t impact where their position was in the standings filling out the next two positions to complete the top five.
Next up was the journey to South Australia and Mallala Motorsport Park.