CRAIG Lowndes has had many hairy moments behind the wheel of a Holden over the years at Mount Panorama and on Saturday morning he added another to his list.
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While there were plenty of laughs about it afterwards, Lowndes very nearly hit the wall at The Esses while taking part in a special tribute to Holden
Lowndes was behind the wheel of a replica of the 1968 Monaro that Bruce McPhee drove to victory in the Great Race.
The skill of Lowndes saw him avoid crashing, but it was a close thing.
"We thought that Craig Lowndes was having a world champion crash in that Monaro," Mark Skaife, who drove an ex-Peter Brock Holden Dealer Team Group A VK Commodore in the tribute, laughed afterwards.
"That was extraordinary, Craig Lowndes at his very, very best, I thought, I was commentating, I was right behind him, I thought that for sure he's in the fence.
"He was nothing away from one of the biggest crashes I've seen for a long time."
The lap, which also saw Todd Kelly steer the 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour winning Monaro, was done to pay tribute to Holden's involvement with the Great Race.
This year will be the last time a factory-backed Holden team - Red Bull Racing - will take place in the Bathurst 1000, while the Commodore itself is set to be replaced by the Camaro in 2022.
Lowndes, who started his career with the Holden Racing Team, was honoured to take part in the tribute.
"There's no seat in this thing and the bus steering wheel, this is so much different to what I'm used to at the moment. [But] What a tribute to be able to be able to drive this car around Bathurst," he said.
"What a celebration it is because Holden's success at the mountain has been extraordinary, 23 pole positions, 33 wins [prior to 2020], seven of those in a row from 1999 to 2005 when Todd and I won here at Bathurst," Skaife added.
"How about the championships, 21 championships and 569 wins, so Holden has been a massive contributor to Australian motor sport and the dynasty of this place."
