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.

It was a sad day for me – one of my racing heroes, Denny Hulme died on live television before my eyes that day – of a heart-attack at the wheel early in the race. Given the mood, many people just wanted to get this race over and done with, and move on. It’s certainly the only Bathurst I’ve wanted to “hurry up and finish”.

That wish was granted when the rain intervened, and the notoriety of this day in Australian sport was born.

On the Wednesday evening after the 1993 AFL Premiership win, here is captain Mark Thompson becoming the “Mayor of Essendon” for the day.

Also included is some great footage of the boys lining up for the official team portrait. Great stuff.

Rare stuff in this video includes the in-car footage from a smoking Allan Moffat Falcon (driven by Charlie O’Brien), with no footage from this car used during the race at all, and Larry Perkins blowing an engine and spinning in his own oil at The Chase on Thursday – this the only place I ever saw this particular footage. The same is true of the #T23 car driven by Joachim Winklehock – the spare fifth car from the Frank Gardner Benson and Hedges/Diet Coca-Cola stable. This car is seen spinning exiting The Dipper, and appears in the standard BMW Motorsport livery, rather than either of the race liveries used by the team at the time.

Hard to comprehend that this was over 16 years ago now – just doesn’t seem that long!

From the moment Allan Grice won the 1986 James Hardie 1000 in a VK Commodore, a Holden did not lead a single race lap at the Bathurst until lap 32 of the 1990 race, when Larry Perkins briefly held the lead during the first round of pitstops.

It would turn out to be a magnificent day for all Holden fans. Not only having led a lap after so long, it actually looked like one of two Holden Commodores might actually win the race.

For most of the day, the Win Percy/Allan Grice car looked the most likely, with the Larry Perkins/Tomas Mezera car not far behind. Right near the end, it seemed that the Perkins Engineering team was going to walk away with it.

But a mix-up with the dual pace cars in operation that year – (and never again, thankfully!) – going at different speeds, Larry lost half a lap at his final pitstop, leaving the Percy/Grice car back in the box seat.

A few late race nerves in regards to fuel consumption kept us all on the edge of our seats, but a Holden won again, and didn’t the fans love it. As former Channel Seven commentator Mike Raymond says on the final lap – “Look at them! You’ve made their day!”.

All I can remember was thinking that it made more than just my day. It was awesome.