This year’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 was a bitter-sweet occasion for emotional fans of iconic marque Holden when the official factory team was officially farewelled from the Virgin Australia Supercars championship at Mount Panorama.
This year’s Great Race, doubling as the final round of a truncated Covid-19 pandemic-shaped 2020 Supercars Championship, marked the last time the Triple Eight Race Engineering Commodores driven by Jamie Whincup and our own Shane Van Gisbergen were to compete as the official Red Bull Holden Racing Team, parent company General Motors’ decision earlier in the year to kill-off the Holden brand effectively bringing down the curtain on official Holden factory support, ending an often-dominant presence dating back to 1969.
The unshakable affection for Holden has been solidified by countless magical competition moments and a long list of great machines and racing heroes.
First steps
First came the Monaro, with racer/journalist David McKay organised a quasi-factory three-car team of 327 V8 two-doors for the 1968 Bathurst 500, though history records that it was privateer Bruce McPhee and single lap co-driver Barry Mulholland in McPhee’s Monaro who scored Holden’s first win in Australia’s best-known race.
The factory support began officially in 1969 despite parent company General Motors pretty much blanket ban on its brands’ participation in motor racing, Holden establishing the Holden Dealer Team.
The annual Bathurst 500, then an endurance race for production cars, was the Holden Dealer Team’s first test, pitting the three HDT Monaro GTS 350 coupes against the favoured Ford Falcon GTHOs.
In a fairy-tale initiation, Colin Bond and Tony Roberts took a stunning victory with teammates Peter Brock and Des West third.
Over the following decade the HDT victories and reputation grew while the team went through management changes, new choices of track weapons, and an array of different drivers, chief amongst them, Peter Brock.
A standout Holden success was in 1979 when Brock and Kiwi co-driver Jim Richards absolutely dominating Bathurst in an HDT Torana A9X hatchback leading every lap and setting a lap record on the final lap; their winning margin, six laps.
Brock went on to own HDT, before falling foul of Holden management over a new-age ‘Polarizer’ device, Holden then teaming up with Scot Tom Walkinshaw to form the Holden Racing Team (HRT) and be back in the winner’s circle at Bathurst in 1990 thanks to HRT works driver Win Percy and local ace Allan Grice.
In 1994, Mark Skaife broke the lengthy Holden championship drought dating back to 1980, winning for Gibson Motorsport.
Most successful era
Holden’s most successful era was in late 1990s and early 2000s with HRT drivers Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife winning a total of six drivers‘ championships and seven Bathurst 1000s before 2017.
Skaife says that during that golden era more than 60 per cent of the grandstands were filled with red shirts. “HRT merchandise sales were massive and HRT was the number one sporting brand in Australia.”
Legendary New Zealand-born Jim Richards raced for several iterations of the factory Holden team, winning three times with Peter Brock (1978-79-80) and then in 2002 alongside Skaife.
Another stunning moment for Holden came in 2003, when hot-shot kiwi Greg Murphy gifted his fans the unforgettable “Lap of the Gods” This was his scintillating qualifying lap around the mountain to take pole position for the Bathurst 1000, which he and Rick Kelly duly won in a satellite Kmart Racing Commodore.
Current era under Triple Eight
Triple Eight Race Engineering started its relationship with Holden in 2010, then took over as the official factory Holden Racing Team in 2017. That year team driver Jamie Whincup secured an unprecedented seventh Supercars title (five won driving Commodores) and the first championship for an official factory team since 2002.
Holden ambassador and Australia’s most popular driver of recent years Craig Lowndes admits this Bathurst will be especially poignant.
“The last race for the factory team is going to be devastating for a lot of people. It’ll hit me hard. I grew up following Peter Brock, John Harvey and then Tomas Mezera and wanting to be a driver for the Holden team. My dreams came true when I got that opportunity.”
Lowndes nominates 1996, his first season as a full-time HRT driver as most memorable. In a stunning year he won the championship and, with Greg Murphy, the Sandown 500 and the Bathurst 1000.
Holden cars starting with the Monaro, then the Torana and more recently a succession of Commodore V8s, have amassed 33 wins in the Bathurst 500/1000 at Mount Panorama and banked a total of 21 Australian Touring Car/Supercars championships
