The 1981 James Hardie 1000 was the 22nd running of the

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (known for sponsorship reasons as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a Touring car racing, touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supe ...

touring car Touring car and tourer are both terms for open cars (i.e. cars without a fixed roof). "Touring car" is a style of open car built in the United States which seats four or more people. The style was popular from the early 1900s to the 1930s. The ...

race. It was held on 4 October 1981 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst. The race was open to cars eligible to the locally developed CAMS

Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for Touring car racing, touring cars and ''Group B'' for Grand tourer, GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 (motorspor ...

touring car regulations with three engine configuration based classes, a system used uniquely for this race. For the first time the race did not go the full race distance as on lap 121, a six car accident blocked the track at McPhillamy Park Corner. The

Ford Falcon The Ford Falcon is an automobile nameplate by Ford Motor Company, Ford that applied to several vehicles worldwide. * Ford Falcon (North America), an automobile produced by Ford from 1960 to 1970. * Ford Falcon (Argentina), a car built by Ford ...

of Dick Johnson and John French were leading the race at the time of the accident and were declared the winners, becoming the first Queenslanders to win the race. Bob Morris and British endurance racer John Fitzpatrick, also driving a Falcon finished second. A lap down in third was

Allan Moffat Allan George Moffat, Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 10 November 1939 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian-born Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins ...

and British endurance racing great Derek Bell driving a

Mazda RX-7 The Mazda RX-7 is a front mid engine, Rear-wheel drive, rear-wheel-drive, rotary engine-powered sports car, manufactured and marketed by Mazda from 1978 through 2002 across three generations, all of which incorporated the use of a compact, light ...

, the best ever result to that point for a Japanese built car. History was made at Bathurst in 1981. For the first (and as of 2024, the only) time in the races history, a reigning

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

World Drivers' Champion drove in the Bathurst 1000. This honour fell to Australia's own World Champion Alan Jones who co-drove with Warren Cullen in Cullen's V8-engined

Holden Commodore The Holden Commodore is a series of automobiles that were sold by now-defunct Australian manufacturer Holden from 1978 until 2020. They were manufactured from 1978 to 2017 in Australia and from 1979 to 1990 in New Zealand, with production of ...

. After 8 wins in the race dating back to

Bob Jane Robert Frederick Jane (18 December 1929 – 28 September 2018) was an Australian race car driver and prominent entrepreneur and business tycoon. A four-time winner of the Armstrong 500, the race that became the prestigious Bathurst 1000 and a ...

and Harry Firth's win in a

Ford Falcon XL The Ford Falcon (XL) is a mid-size car which was produced by Ford Australia from 1962 to 1964. It was the second iteration of the first generation of the Falcon Overview The Falcon XL was introduced in August 1962,AC Bushby, The Australian For ...

Phillip Island Phillip Island (Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung: ''Corriong'', ''Worne'' or ''Millowl'') is an Australian island about south-southeast of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria. The island is named after Arthur Phillip, Governor Arthur P ...

1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...

, this would prove to be the last Bathurst 1000 win for the

until

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

. It would also be the 6th and last Bathurst win for the 5.8 L 351 Cleveland

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight- cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. Origins The first known V8 was the Antoinette, designed by Léon Levavasseur, a ...

Class structure

Class : 8 Cylinder & Over

This class was almost exclusively for V8s;

s and

Chevrolet Camaro The Chevrolet Camaro is a mid-size American automobile manufactured by Chevrolet, classified as a pony car. It first went on sale on September 29, 1966, for the 1967 model year and was designed to compete with the Ford Mustang. The Camaro sha ...

s. The exception being a V12 Jaguar XJ-S.

Class : 6 Cylinder (Includes Rotary Engines)

The class for six-cylinder and rotary-engined cars was contested mostly by

Ford Capri The Ford Capri is a fastback coupé built by Ford of Europe and designed by Philip T. Clark, who had been involved in the design of the Ford Mustang. It used the mechanical components from the Mk2 Ford Cortina and was intended as the European ...

s, with a single factory supported BMW 635CSi and those

Mazda RX7 The Mazda RX-7 is a front mid engine, rear-wheel-drive, rotary engine-powered sports car, manufactured and marketed by Mazda from 1978 through 2002 across three generations, all of which incorporated the use of a compact, lightweight Wankel ro ...

s entered, powered by rotary engines.

Class : 4 Cylinder (Includes 5 Cylinder & Turbo)

The class for cars with four-cylinder engines included

Alfa Romeo Alfasud The Alfa Romeo Alfasud (Type 901, 902 and 904) is a small family car manufactured and marketed from 1971 to 1989 by Alfa Romeo as a front-engine, four-door, five-passenger entry-level model over a single generation — with facelifts in 1977 a ...

, Alfa Romeo Alfetta, Ford Escort,

Isuzu Gemini The Isuzu Gemini is a subcompact car produced by the Japanese automaker Isuzu from 1974 until 2000. The same basic product was built and/or sold under several other names, sometimes by other General Motors brands, in various markets around the wor ...

Mitsubishi Colt The Mitsubishi Colt is a nameplate from Mitsubishi Motors that has been applied to a number of automobiles since 1962. It was first introduced with a series of Kei car, kei and subcompact cars in the 1960s, and then for the export version of the ...

Mitsubishi Lancer The Mitsubishi Lancer is an automobile that was produced by the Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors from 1973 until 2024. The Lancer has been marketed as the Colt Lancer, Dodge Colt, Plymouth Colt, Chrysler Valiant Lancer, Chrysler Lancer, ...

, Nissan Bluebird Turbo,

Toyota Celica The is an automobile produced by Toyota from 1970 until 2006. The Celica name derives from the Latin word ''wikt:coelicus, coelica'' meaning ''heavenly'' or ''celestial''. In Japan, the Celica was exclusive to ''Toyota Corolla Store'' Car deale ...

Toyota Corolla The is a series of compact cars (formerly Subcompact car, subcompact) manufactured and marketed globally by the Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation. Introduced in 1966, the Corolla was the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has bee ...

Triumph Dolomite The Triumph Dolomite was a small saloon car produced by the Triumph Motor Company division of the British Leyland (BL) in Canley, Coventry, between October 1972 and August 1980. Background The Dolomite was the final addition to Triumph's smal ...

, and

Volkswagen Golf The Volkswagen Golf () is a compact car/ small family car ( C-segment) produced by the German automotive manufacturer Volkswagen since 1974, marketed worldwide across eight generations, in various body configurations and under various nameplate ...

Hardies Heroes

* This was the first Top 10 shootout to be held in wet conditions, though conditions were damp for the first ever shootout in

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd ...

.1981 Hardies Heroes, www.youtube.com
/ref>
* For the 2nd year running, Kevin Bartlett was fastest qualifier and won Hardies Heroes in his Channel 9 sponsored

. It was also the second year in a row that Dick Johnson would equal Bartlett's time in qualifying, but would be slower in the shootout. Due to the extremely wet conditions, Bartlett's runoff time was almost 16 seconds slower than his time in qualifying.
* This was the first time a car powered by something other than a

had contested Hardies Heroes. The honor went to the 12A Rotary powered

who ended up 5th on the grid.
* The gap of 2.381 seconds between Bartlett and Johnson broke the

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

record of 1.966 seconds between

Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...

and Bob Morris. As of the 2018 race, Bartlett's shootout record remains unbeaten.

Race

The race was stopped on lap 122 because of a multiple-car incident that blocked the track at McPhillamy Park Corner. The accident began with a collision between the Ford Falcons of Bob Morris and Christine Gibson. Garry Rogers and Tony Edmondson (both driving Holden Commodores) and the Isuzu Gemini of David Seldon collided with already crashed cars with the Chevrolet Camaro of Kevin Bartlett being the final car to be involved. According to the regulations, the race was declared based on the timesheets as the race leader, at the time John French, completed lap 120. This is done so that crashed vehicles can be included in the results. This was particularly significant in this instance as a significant number of the vehicles involved held high race position. Morris was second, Rogers fourth, Edmondson fifth and Christine Gibson sixth.

Results

References

Statistics

* Provisional Pole Position - #9 Kevin Bartlett - 2:18.7 * Pole Position - #9 Kevin Bartlett - 2:36.432 * Fastest Lap - #17 Dick Johnson - 2:20.98 (lap record) * Average Speed - 151 km/h * Race Time - 4:53:52.7

External links

Race results, www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au

Images, autopics.com.au
{{Bathurst 1000 races Motorsport in Bathurst, New South Wales James Hardie 1000