1979 Bathurst 1000

The 1979 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 was the 20th running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race. It was held on September 30, 1979, at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst. The race was open to cars eligible to the locally developed CAMS Group C touring car regulations with four engine capacity based classes.

Peter Brock and Jim Richards won their second successive Bathurst 1000 driving a Holden Dealer Team A9X SS Hatchback Torana. In the most dominant performance in the races history, Brock, starting from pole position, got a perfect start and from that point the #05 MHDT Torana was never headed. Brock and Richards won the race by a record six laps, easily beating the old winning margin of 2 laps set in 1975 with Brock claiming the lap record of 2:21.1 on the last lap of the 6.172 km long circuit. Brock later claimed that he just wanted to show how good the Torana was even after 1000 km of hard racing. Brock didn't have a clear lap in which to set the lap record and actually passed 7 cars over the lap, though luckily all but one were on either Mountain or Conrod Straights which did not hinder him. It was Brock's fourth and Richards second win. Brock's win put him equal on most wins with Harry Firth, Bob Jane and his longtime rival Allan Moffat. Toranas swept the podium with Peter Janson and Larry Perkins finishing second ahead of Ralph Radburn and John Smith.

With Holden ending production of the Torana, 1979 would be the 5th and last Torana victory in the race (all bar 1976 were won by Brock). From 1980 Holden's flagship would be the European (Opel Senator) based Commodore.

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