1994 Bathurst 1000: The DJR Falcon flies high

Most people only remember one thing about Bathurst in 1994, it was the bold around-the-outside pass at the top of Mountain Straight that took 20-year-old Craig Lowndes into the lead at Griffins Bend and announced his arrival as a future star in touring car racing.

Lowndes now admits he missed his braking, and John Bowe declined to fight him for the spot with victory on the line – but it was a truly memorable moment.

It came at a time when Aussie muscle cars were the fan favourites, the touring car championship had grown to 10 rounds, but a new generation of two-litre touring cars were sliding into the action.

It would only be a couple of years before the creation of V8 Supercars to properly promote and market the homegrown heroes – cars and drivers – and the introduction of Super Touring that triggered the biggest Bathurst battle in the history of the race.

It would be the last race with a two-class entry as Ford-versus-Holden and Falcon-versus-Commodore provided the inspiration for a new generation of touring car fans.

Lowndes’ performance also signalled a significant change on the driving front, as the old guard of owner-drivers started to step back and a new generation of paid hot-shoes arrived to fill their spots.

But that was still to come as team boss Dick Johnson and his hired gun Bowe claimed victory in the Bathurst 1000.

They were sharing an EB Falcon which was a world away from the Ford Sierra turbo which first carried the pair to first place in 1989.

Lowndes was second with the Holden Racing Team and got plenty of credit, even though it was Brad Jones who had done the largely unrecognised heavy lifting to get himself and ’The Kid’ back into contention after also qualifying ninth in the Top 10 shootout.

Larry Perkins and former MotoGP racer Gregg Hansford were third, a year after the pair had scored one of Perkins’ six victories at Mount Panorama. It was a time when the former F1 racer was at his peak as Commodores from Perkins Engineering won three times through the 1990s, but just months before Hansford was killed in a crash at Phillip Island in a Ford Mondeo.

Best of the 2-litre cars was Paul Morris, sharing with BMW factory racer Altfrid Heger, in a factory-prepared 318i. They had only qualified 31st but finished in 10th place, as BMWs screamed home to a 10-11-12 result, although eight laps behind the winners at the flag.

The results were one thing, but there were plenty of other stories as only 26 cars took the chequered flag from the 45 who started the race.

Most significant, with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, was the non-finish for Glenn Seton, who had lined up with Paul Radisich.

He had qualified his Falcon on pole position with a lap in 2 minutes 12.1464 seconds, edging out Peter Brock, and was a consistent pace-setter throughout the weekend.

But, just after halfway through the 161-lap contest, his engine failed and contributed another non-finish to the record of the best driver never to win at Mount Panorama.

There were other high-profile casualties.

Brock, who had started from the front row with Tomas Mezera as his co-driver after building a bridge with Holden that put him back into the HRT factory team, crashed at the top of the Mountain in a rare error that signalled the start of his decline as a front-line racer. It also meant he missed a potential $100,000 payday, as he was offered that bonus if he could claim his 10th Bathurst win.

Wayne Gardner, who was operating his Coca-Cola Commodore team from Sydney after his own split from HRT, where the crew unkindly nicknamed him ‘Captain Chaos’, was another who crashed out of the race after hitting oil.

Mark Skaife, who came to Bathurst as the touring car champion after taking four wins in the Winfield Commodore prepared by Fred Gibson’s team, should have been a contender with Jim Richards alongside him and third on the grid. But he, too, crashed.

In a pointer to the future, there was a group of high-profile rookies who raced alongside Lowndes in ’94.

Steven Johnson shared a family Falcon with Allan Grice and Greg Murphy raced an unlikely Toyota Carina in the two-litre class, only managing 23rd place.

Image: Auto Action Archives

2024 Bathurst 1000

Practice 1: 1: Matt Payne 2:07.2941 2: Cameron Waters +0.0366 3: Will Brown +0.0373

Practice 2: 1: J. Whincup 2:07.4788 2: C. Murray +0.0370 3: J. Ojeda +0.1860

Practice 3: 1: B. Feeney 2:06.7842 2: T. Randle +0.0614 3: J. Courtney +0.0700

Practice 4: 1: B. Kostecki 2:06.1820 2: C. Waters +0.1636 3: B. Feeney +0.3455

Qualifying: 1: M. Payne 2:05.6452 2: C. Waters +0.0060 3: B. Feeney +0.0113

Practice 5: Sat 10.05-11.05 (co drivers)

Practice 6: Sat 13.05-14.05 (all drivers)

Top 10 Shootout: Sat 17.05

Warm up: Sun 8.15-8.35

Bathurst 1000: Sun 11.30 (161 laps)

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