BACK in 1991 when the GIO Nissan Skyline took on Mount Panorama it could only manage third in the Bathurst 1000, but fast-forward 24 years and it was the car which claimed the chequered flag.

It may not have been a Great Race victory for driver Terry Lawlor, but he still certainly enjoyed his victory in the first Heritage Touring Cars race staged as part of the Bathurst Motor Festival.

As the name suggests, the category includes many Touring Cars which tackled the Mount Panorama endurance epic, the festival grid including Ford Sierras, Holden Toranas and Nissan Skylines with familiar livery.

Lawlor has kept the same livery that Mark Gibbs and Rohan Onslow ran in 1991 when they placed third in the Great Race behind another Nissan Skyline – that of Mark Skaife and Jim Richards.

The significance of racing his GTR R32 at Bathurst was certainly not lost on Lawlor, nor the spectators who attended the three-day event.

“It is great to come here this time of year, they are an iconic car and I am proud to own it and proud to be part of bringing it back to Bathurst,” Lawlor said.

“It is a bit of a shame there is not the other GTR here and maybe Jim Richards, but just to have this car at Bathurst is fantastic.

“The crowd love it, everyone has got a story about 1991 and that is what is great about this category, you have the history. Everyone knows the cars and everyone loves them.

“I haven’t been here for three or four years, and just the first couple of laps around the circuit it was just fantastic. To come down through The Dipper and through Forrest’s [Elbow], it was great.”

On a wet Friday, Lawlor was the quickest man in qualifying, going one better than Gibbs in 1991 when he placed second behind Skaife in the Bathurst 1000 top 10 shootout.

Lawlor’s best lap of two minutes, 43.2378 seconds put him on pole for Saturday’s race and after getting away well once the green light was given, he led through each of the six laps.

He finished more than five seconds clear of Victorian Bryan Sala in his Ford Sierra RS500 with Mark Eddy third in a Nissan Skyline HR31.

Still, it was certainly not all easy going for Lawlor. 

“It was a little slippery, but vision was the main thing. Coming up to the backmarkers you couldn’t see anything and in these cars you don’t have any demisters,” he said.

“With the water on the track, once these cars heated up, the windscreen just misted over. Vision was the biggest issue we had rather than things being slippery.

“With this car being four-wheel drive, traction was very good and with this car in particular, you actually loose traction if you take your foot off the power. The more power you put into the four wheels, the more traction you have.”

While keeping out of trouble is the main goal for drivers in a series which does not involve big budgets, Lawlor most certainly was chasing the chequered flag in the testing conditions.

In race two later on Saturday afternoon, Lawlor again beat Sala to the chequered flag, this time by less than half a second.

It was pushing to be near the head of the field which led him to racing the iconic Nissan Skyline in the first place. 

“I owned the Caltex Sierra Ford before and Rod Markland owned this car and he wanted to take it a bit easier and I wanted to take it a bit faster, so we did a deal,” he said. 

“I am a competitive guy, I want to be up the pointy end, so what better car to have than this?”