Tighe powered home in his Dallara 395 in a time of 23.02 to win the Esses Hill Climb opening round on Saturday.

The best was saved for last as Tighe produced his winning time on the fourth and final run of his day, bettering the mark of 23.22 he'd set on run two.

The time was quick enough to see off fellow Formula Libre Cars over 2000cc competitor Ron Hay, who couldn't better his earlier time of 25.09 during his final run.

Third place overall went to David Mahon driving his Dallara F394 in the Formula Libre Cars 750-1300cc class, just one hundredth of a second behind Hay's best time.

Tighe said it was immensely satisfying to finally conquer Mount Panorama after many previous attempts.

"I've been to Bathurst between 12 to 14 times in this is the fourth car I've brought here," he said.

"That means I've had three cars here that I couldn't win outright with but this time I've done it. We were second here last year and we've gone quicker than we did last year, which is really good.

"We designed and built the car ourselves. It's got an ex-Formula 1 engine in it and it goes quite well."

Saturday's hill climb wasn't just about the battle for the overall lead.

There were several great battles within different classes, and some drivers even came away with new record times from the event.

In the Clubman Sports over 1600cc category Peter Brown took his Prosport Mulsanne to a new record time of 26.57 - a time also good enough for sixth overall.

Aden Hadley made himself the new record holder in the Sports Sedans 1301-2000 division after he piloted his Datsun 1000 home in 28.85.

There were several close calls with records in other categories.

In road registered over 2500 Liam O'Brien went close to the peak time with his Holden HSV GTS after driving to the top in 28.80.

It was a similar story in Road registered under 2500 as Garry Christopherson drove a 31.68 in his final run of the day in his Westfield SEi.

Zac Le Lievre nearly wrote his name into the record books on his way to fourth place overall.

He won the Open/Closed Sports up to 1600cc class when steering his Westfield Megabusa to the top in 25.37 - just a tenth shy of the record.

Greg Boyle rounded out the overall top five by driving his Nissan Skyline R32 GTR to victory in the Sports Sedans over 3000 (26.39).