Interesting to see old names like Colin Bond, the late Peter Brock, Dick Johnson, and Win Percy strutting their stuff when cars were flexible enough to lead to keeping all four wheels on the road becoming difficult!

The Mallala round shown here was the competition debut of the Nissan GT-R in Australia – a vehicle regulated out of the championship by the end of 1992.

Also love the commentary over the package by Mike Raymond – done in a way that only Mike Raymond could!

The only thing that can be said is “speeeeeeeeeeeeeeshul!”

Enter Perkins Engineering, run by Larry Perkins – Brock’s former engineer and team-mate between 1982 and early 1985. Perkins had all the gear, but no funding. Brock had all the funding, but no gear. The marriage of convenience was born, and Brock returned to Holden.

Despite some reasonable results, the season wasn’t the best for the Perkins Engineering Mobil-backed team of 1991, and they went their separate ways again for 1992, with Brock holding onto the cars to form Advantage Racing, and Perkins returning to his 1990-built chassis.

But the prodigal son had returned to Holden, and the gods were appeased!

As an interesting note point of history, this segment was originally prepared to be shown on the Seven Network during their coverage of the opening round of the 1991 season from Sandown. However, due to coverage of the First Gulf War breaking into normal programming, approximately 30 minutes was trimmed from the start of the Sandown coverage. This segment was dropped, and was then shown as part of the coverage of the second round from Symmons Plains – notice the little piece tacked onto the end about how the “new team” went at Sandown.

Going through my old tapes, when I reached the presentation ceremony at the end of the race, I rediscovered the footage that reveals why Paul Morris is called “Dude”. He (in yellow) and Geoff Full (in white) won the 1600cc and Under class that day, and were duly presented on the podium as such. Here is their “effort” on the podium with Channel Seven’s Garry Wilkinson:

I remember when watching it live on the day – when Morris in particular was largely unknown – that these two were obviously excited for their result, but also that they were a tad on the “odd” side. For evermore, Paul Morris was known as “Dude”!

There have been many changes at Mount Panorama in recent years. A new pit complex. A massive hotel/convention centre at the bottom of Conrod Straight. A new bridge over Pit Straight. Regular track resurfacing.

However, the year the biggest changes occurred was 1987, when the Bathurst 1000 became a round of the now-defunct original World Touring Car Championship.

After the death of Mike Burgmann in the 1986 race, Caltex Chase scarred the original Conrod Straight forever. Concrete walls lined most of the circuit, and the pit complex that was torn down in 2007, was built. Here Neil Crompton looks at the massive changes made for the 1987 James Hardie 1000.

Plenty different now!

Once again, I was there that night. I was right behind the flight of his winning final goal. Delirium followed, and I still get chills watching this footage. Awesome.