Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the death in 2006 of nine-times Bathurst winner Peter Brock.

To mark the occasion, seven-times winner Jim Richards and three-times winner Dick Johnson yesterday laid a wreath of native flowers against the statue erected in Brock’s memory at the foot of the mountain he loved.

There was a general feeling that it just wasn’t right that the King of the Mountain would not be there for the 50 year anniversary celebrations of the Great Race set down for October.

“He’d be loving this,” Brock’s former co-driver Richards said yesterday.

“After all, he was Australian motorsport.”

The old guard of Allan Moffat, Colin Bond, Richards and Johnson were joined by young guns Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup, while Russell Ingall bridged the gap between the groups. 

Brock protege Lowndes reflected on his fondest memories of Brock when, during Lowndes’ first outing at the Mount in 1994, he was really struggling to get up to speed.

Brock sat Lowndes down and explained how to position himself and taught him about the flow across the mountain. Lowndes’ lap times improved by a second and a half.

“The place has evolved, the cars have evolved but the points he spoke of then, I still look for,” Lowndes said.

“To come back in 2006, the year of his passing, and win was a special moment for me. It was the first time he was not there.”

Richards remembered driving to victory with Brock in 1979.

“Peter so dominated that race he won by six laps,” Richards said. “He was a fantastic driver.”

One of his greatest rivals, Johnson said Brock is part of a lot of his memories of Mount Panorama. 

“We had a few fights over the years. One thing about Peter is that when you had a fight, it was always a fair one,” Johnson said.

“You can’t say the same for people today.”

He said he was enjoying his involvement with the 50th anniversary celebrations.

“But then every day I get out of bed is a good day,” he grinned.

Whincup said he’d never seen Brock race in person, although he had watched him on YouTube.

“Me and a few mates would watch him go up through The Cutting with such determination,” he said. “There was a lack of power steering and we would laugh as he wrestled this thing into The Cutting.”

Asked if he thought Brock was a great driver, Bond quipped: “I think he was just lucky.”

“In those days you could win races by laps and we didn’t have safety cars,” he said.

“In our day if you could get in front and you had a good car, you just kept increasing your lead. Today the safety cars allow everyone to catch up – but you have to have them, though.

“There was also a big difference in the speeds between cars and when we raced there could be 55 cars on the track.”

Ingall said he had been fortunate to race through both eras of racing greats.

“I was a young gun back in the Brock era,” he said. “I saw those old guys out and the new legends come in.”

V8 Supercars spokesman Cole Hitchcock said every decade from the 1960s was represented in the seven drivers at the Mount yesterday. 

Richards has seven wins on Mount Panorama, Lowndes five, Moffat four, Johnson three, Whincup three, Ingall two and Bond one. 

Yesterday also served as the launch of this year’s Bathurst 1000, which is now only a month away.

The legends have also been working on a production featuring the top 50 moments of motor racing on the mountain.