THERE’S plenty of behind-the-scenes activity going on at Mount Panorama in the lead-up to tomorrow’s 50th anniversary of the Great Race.
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One crowd-puller is the paddock-based Legends Museum, which features cars from past battles at the famous circuit.
One of those cars is the fully restored Kmart Commodore that Greg Murphy took to a record-breaking lap to take pole for Bathurst in 2003 before he won the race the next day with Rick Kelly.
According to V8 Supercars, Murphy’s 2m06.8594s pole-winn-ing lap was among the 10 most awesome Bathurst moments of all-time in a fan-based poll.
The car – which remains the most commonly asked-about car by readers of BigPond Sport’s regular “Saturday Sleuthing” on the V8 Supercars website – is just one of the range of Bathurst-winning cars in the trackside Legends Museum at Mount Panorama.
Other cars on display include the 1986-winning Chickadee Commodore of Allan Grice/ Graeme Bailey, the 1992-winning Nissan GT-R of Jim Richards/Mark Skaife, the 2000 Valvoline/GRM winning Commodore VT of Garth Tander/Jason Bargwanna and the 2006 Team Betta/Triple Eight Falcon BA of Craig Lowndes/ Jamie Whincup.
And there are many other cars on display in the Legends Museum to mark the anniversary.
They include:
* A recently re-discovered Holden Monaro GTS 327 driven in the 1968 Hardie-Ferodo 500 at Bathurst for the Holden Dealer Racing Team – the forerunner to the Holden Dealer Team that debuted a year later.
* Peter Champion’s ex-Holden Dealer Team “Big Bangers” Commodore VK Group C car from the famous one-two finish of 1984
* One of the JPS BMW 635s that ended up buried in the sand at Hell Corner in the 1985 race – it’s now owned by Jim Richards!
* A replica of Dick Johnson’s first Bathurst 1000 car – a Torana XU-1 he drove to fifth place in 1973.
* The last #05 HDT Commodore built by Peter Brock’s team in 1987 that he started that year’s race at Bathurst in before its engine failed and he and David Parsons transferred into the eventual race-winning #10 Mobil entry.
* Brock’s final-ever Bathurst 1000 car, the 2004 Holden Racing Team Commodore that was crashed by Jason Plato and has been restored to #05 Mobil HRT livery.
* The GIO Nissan GT-R that started on the front row in 1991 and finished on the podium in the hands of Mark Gibbs and Rohan Onslow.
* The restored 1998 #1 HRT Commodore that Mark Skaife took to pole position.
Do you remember any of these cars racing around the track? Comment below.
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