Mount Panorama street racing circuit in Australia

The 1990 Tooheys 1000 was a motor race held on 30 September 1990 at the

Mount Panorama Circuit Mount Panorama Circuit, officially Mount Panorama/Wahluu via dual naming, is a motor racing track located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is situated on Mount Panorama and is best known as the home of the Bathurst 1000 motor race ...

just outside

Bathurst, New South Wales Bathurst () is a city in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. Bathurst is about 200 kilometres (120 mi) west-northwest of Sydney and is the seat of the Bathurst Region, Bathurst Regional Council. Founded in 1815, Bathurst is ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. The event was open to cars eligible under CAMS Group 3A regulations, commonly known as Group A Touring Cars, with three engine capacity classes. It was the 31st 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 ...

". The race, which was Round 2 of both the

1990 Australian Endurance Championship The 1990 Australian Endurance Championship was the seventh running of the Australian Endurance Championship. It began on 9 September 1990 at Sandown Raceway and ended on 3 November at the Eastern Creek Raceway after three rounds. The championshi ...

and the 1990 Australian Manufacturers' Championship, resulted in an upset victory for British driver

Win Percy Winston Walter Frederick Percy (born 28 September 1943, near Tolpuddle, Dorset) is a British former motor racing driver from England. Percy was British Touring Car Champion three times, and at the time of his retirement was the most successful ...

and

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal en ...

Bathurst 1000 winner

Allan Grice Allan Maxwell Grice (born 21 October 1942), known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000 (1986 and 1990), and as a privateer driver of ...

in a

Holden Racing Team Walkinshaw Andretti United is an Australian motor racing team based in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. The team, initially branded as the Holden Racing Team, used to field Holden Commodores in the Supercars Championship before making the swit ...

entered

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 ...

over the

Dick Johnson Racing Dick Johnson Racing (formerly DJR Team Penske) is Australia's oldest motor racing team competing in the Supercars Championship. Founded by Dick Johnson, the team's drivers have won ten Australian Touring Car Championship titles (five of the ...

Ford Sierra The Ford Sierra is a Mid-size car, mid-size/D-segment, large family car manufactured and marketed by Ford of Europe from 1982–1993. It was designed by Uwe Bahnsen, Bob Lutz (businessman), Robert Lutz and Patrick Le Quément, and was noted for ...

Jeff Allam Jeffrey Frank Allam (born 19 December 1954 in Epsom, England), is a former British racing driver who made his name in Saloon Car racing. He now works as Head of Business for Allam Motor Services in Epsom which are a Skoda sales and service and V ...

and

Paul Radisich Paul Francis Wade Radisich (born 9 October 1962, in Auckland) is a retired New Zealand racing driver and businessman of Croat origin. He has competed in saloon cars for many years — both European-style tourers and the V8 Supercars of Austr ...

and the

Perkins Engineering Perkins Engineering was a team contesting the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series, operating as an active racing team between 1986 and 2008. From 2009 onwards, the involvement of Perkins Engineering in the championship was wound back i ...

Holden Commodore of

Larry Perkins Larry Clifton Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a former racing driver and V8 Supercar team owner from Australia. Biography Early years Growing up on a farm in Cowangie in the Mallee region of Victoria, Larry, the son of racing driver Edd ...

and

Tomas Mezera Tomas Mezera (born 5 November 1958 in Czechoslovakia) is a naturalised Australian racing driver. Mezera won the 1988 Bathurst 1000, and for many years was a member of the Holden Racing Team as both a driver and team manager. Mezera's sporting ...

. The race marked the first Bathurst 1000 victory for the Holden Racing Team and the team's first race win since Larry Perkins won the Group A support race at the

Australian Grand Prix The Australian Grand Prix is an annual Formula One motor racing event, taking place in Melbourne, Victoria. The event is contracted to be held at least until 2035. One of the oldest surviving motorsport competitions held in Australia, the Gran ...

in November 1988.

Class structure

Cars competed in three divisions as follows:

Division 1: 3001cc and Over

Division 1 featured the

turbocharged In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (also known as a turbo or a turbosupercharger) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake air, forcing more air into the ...

Nissan Skyline The is a brand of automobile originally produced by the Prince Motor Company starting in 1957, and then by Nissan after the two companies merged in 1967. After the merger, the Skyline and its larger counterpart, the Nissan Gloria, were sold in ...

s and

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s, the V8

s and a BMW 635CSi.

Division 2: 1601 to 3000cc

Division 2 was composed of

BMW M3 The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M GmbH. M3 models have been produced for every generation of 3 Series since the E30 M3 was introduced in 1986. The initial mod ...

s, a BMW 323i and a Mercedes-Benz 190E.

Division 3: Up to 1600cc

Division 3 was composed exclusively of various models of

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 ...

Tooheys Top Ten

* After being fastest qualifier by almost half a second, and breaking

George Fury George Fury (born 31 January 1945, in Hungary) is a retired Australian rally and racing car driver. For the majority of his career Fury was associated with Nissan, twice winning the Australian Rally Championship, and twice runner up in the Aus ...

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

Hardies Heroes record time of 2:13.85 in the process (by just 0.01 seconds), and with his B&H Sierra the fastest car on Conrod Straight at over ,

Tony Longhurst Anthony Lawrence Longhurst (born 1 October 1957 in Sydney) is an Australian racing driver and former Australian Champion water skier. He is most noted for his career in the Australian Touring Car Championship and V8 Supercar series. Longhurst is ...

made a mistake in the shootout and lost over two seconds while teammate Alan Jones, who had matched Longhurst's time in qualifying, suffered gearbox problems on his shootout lap and did not record a competitive time.
*

Klaus Niedzwiedz Klaus Niedzwiedz (born February 24, 1951, in Dortmund, West Germany) is a former professional race driver and motoring journalist. Driver His greatest success came in the 1980s as a driver for Ford. Niedzwiedz rose to prominence when driving a ...

, who was only 7th after official qualifying, improved his time by over a second to win his second Top Ten for

Allan Moffat Racing Allan Moffat Racing was an Australian motor racing team owned by multiple-championship winning Canadian-Australian racing driver Allan Moffat. The team was highly successful, winning races on three continents including three Australian Touring ...

after also winning the "for money only" shootout in

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

.
*

Gibson Motorsport Gibson Motorsport was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship from 1985 until 2003, though the team had its roots in Gibson's "Road & Track" team which ran a series of Ford Falcon GTHOs in Serie ...

4WD A four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, is a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case provi ...

, twin turbo

Nissan Skyline GT-R The is a Japanese sports car based on the Nissan Skyline range. The first cars named "Skyline GT-R" were produced between 1969 and 1972 under the model code KPGC10, and were successful in Japanese touring car racing events. This model was fol ...

of Jim Richards and

Mark Skaife Mark Stephen Skaife (born 3 April 1967) is an Australian former racing driver. Skaife is a five-time champion of the Supercars Championship, V8 Supercar Championship Series, including its predecessor, the Australian Touring Car Championship, a ...

, which was expected to take pole, failed to make the Top Ten, being only 0.04 behind the 10th placed

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (India), in India ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ' ...

of eventual race winners

and

at the end of Friday's qualifying. During the final qualifying session, Richards reportedly matched Longhurst's top speed on Conrod.
* 1990 was the fifth and last time that Allan Grice was the fastest of the

runners in the Top Ten. Previously he had led the Holden charge in

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. ...

(pole),

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...

(4th),

(2nd) and

1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...

(7th).
* V8

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. Founded in Adelaide, it was an automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter that sold cars under its own marque in Australia. It was ...

s were back in the runoff after missing out in

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

, with the

car, and the Percy/Grice HRT car qualifying over 4 seconds faster than the Commodores had managed 12 months earlier.

Official results

Statistics

* Provisional Pole Position - #25 Tony Longhurst - 2:13.84 * Pole Position - #10 Klaus Niedzwiedz - 2:13.94 * Fastest Lap - #1 Mark Skaife - 2:15.46 (165.12 km/h)Australian Motor Racing Year 1990/91, page 280 - Lap 98 (new lap record) * Race time of winning car - 6:40:52.641990 Tooheys 1000 Race Results, Tooheys 1000 Official 1991 Programme, page 29 * Race average of winning car - 149.72 km/h

References

External links

Tooheys 1000 Bathurst 1990, touringcarracing.net

* ttp://autopics.com.au/bathurst-1990/ Images from Bathurst 1990, www.autopics.com.au {{Bathurst 1000 races Motorsport in Bathurst, New South Wales Tooheys 1000 September 1990 sports events in Australia