Mount Panorama street racing circuit in Australia

The 1989 Tooheys 1000 was the 30th running of the

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most recen ...

touring car Touring car and tourer are both terms for open cars (i.e. cars without a fixed roof). "Touring car" is a style of open car built in the United States which seats four or more people. The style was popular from the early 1900s to the 1930s. Th ...

race. It was held on 1 October 1989 at the

Mount Panorama Circuit Mount Panorama Circuit is a motor racing track located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is situated on Mount Panorama (Wahluu) and is best known as the home of the Bathurst 1000 motor race held each October, and the Bathurst 12 Hour ...

just outside Bathurst,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The race was held for cars eligible under International

Group A Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived vehicles intended for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles w ...

touring car regulations with three engine capacity classes. The race was won by the

Dick Johnson Racing Dick Johnson Racing (formerly DJR Team Penske), is Australia's oldest motor racing team competing in the Supercars Championship. The team currently fields the #11 and #17 Ford Mustang GTs for Anton de Pasquale and Will Davison respective ...

Ford Sierra The Ford Sierra is a mid-size car or large family car manufactured and marketed by Ford Europe from 1982-1993, designed by Uwe Bahnsen, Robert Lutz and Patrick le Quément — and noted for its aerodynamic styling producing a drag coefficien ...

of Dick Johnson and John Bowe. The pair lead almost the whole of the race and was only seriously threatened by the

Allan Moffat Allan George Moffat OBE (born 10 November 1939 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian-Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins in the Sandown 500 and his four win ...

run Sierra of German drivers

Klaus Niedzwiedz Klaus Niedzwiedz (born February 24, 1951 in Dortmund, Germany) is a former professional race driver and motoring journalist. Driver His greatest success came in the 1980s as a driver for Ford. Niedzwiedz rose to prominence when driving a Ford C ...

and

Frank Biela Frank Stanley Biela (born 2 August 1964 in Neuss) is a German auto racing driver, mainly competing in touring cars and sportscar racing. He has raced exclusively in cars manufactured by the Audi marque since 1990. Career Biela started his care ...

. Third and fourth places were awarded to the official factory Nissan team entries with the

Nissan Skyline The is a brand of automobile originally produced by the Prince Motor Company starting in 1957, and then by Nissan after the two companies merged in 1967. After the merger, the Skyline and its larger counterpart, the Nissan Gloria, were sold in ...

of Jim Richards and

Mark Skaife Mark Skaife (born 3 April 1967) is a retired Australian motor racing driver. Skaife is a five-time champion of the V8 Supercar Championship Series, including its predecessor, the Australian Touring Car Championship, as well as a six-time Bath ...

finishing third. The Tooheys Top Ten runoff for pole position was notable for

Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...

discharging his Ford Sierra's engine bay Halon gas fire extinguisher which was angled across the intercooler substantially boosting the power of the engine in the crucial drive up the mountain straight. As this was not technically against the rules the scrutineers did not find any misconduct, but the Entrants Association levied a $5000 fine on Brock for a moral infringement of the rules.

Class structure

Cars competed in three classesThe 1989 Toohey 1000 Entry List, Official Programme, Tooheys 1000, Mount Panorama – Bathurst, 1 October 1989, pages 64 & 65 defined by engine capacity.

Class 1

Class 1 (Over 2501cc) featured the

turbocharged In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

Toyota Supra is a sports car and grand tourer manufactured by the Toyota Motor Corporation beginning in 1978. The name "supra" is derived from the Latin prefix, meaning "above", "to surpass" or "go beyond". The initial four generations of the Supra were pr ...

s and

Mitsubishi Starion The Mitsubishi Starion is a two-door, turbocharged Inline-four engine, four-cylinder rear-wheel drive four-seat hatchback sports car manufactured and marketed by Mitsubishi Motors, Mitsubishi from 1982-1989 — with badge engineering, badge en ...

s, the V8

Holden Commodore The Holden Commodore is a full-size car that was sold by Holden from 1978 to 2020. It was manufactured from 1978 to 2017 in Australia and from 1979 to 1990 in New Zealand, with production of the locally manufactured versions in Australia endin ...

s and

BMW 635CSi The BMW E24 is the first generation of BMW 6 Series range of grand tourer cars, which was produced from January 1976 to 1989 and replaced the BMW E9 coupé. The E24 was produced solely in a 2-door coupé body style. All models used petrol straig ...

Class 2

Class 2 (1601 to 2500cc) comprised

BMW M3 The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M GmbH. M3 models have been produced for every generation of 3 Series since the E30 M3 was introduced in 1986. The initial model ...

s and a

Nissan Gazelle The is the series of small sports cars produced by Nissan. Versions of the Silvia have been marketed as the 200SX or 240SX for export, with some export versions being sold under the Datsun brand. The name "Silvia" is derived from Sylvia, th ...

Class 3

Class 3 (Up to 1600cc) was contested exclusively by various models of

Toyota Corolla The is a series of compact cars (formerly subcompact) manufactured and marketed globally by the Toyota Motor Corporation. Introduced in 1966, the Corolla was the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the best-selling cars in ...

Tooheys Top Ten

The Tooheys Top Ten was contested on the Saturday by the fastest ten cars from Friday to determine the final positions for the first five rows on the grid. For the first time since the advent of the Top Ten in

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...

, television broadcaster Channel 7 aired the runoff in a one-hour package on the Saturday afternoon rather than the half-hour package of previous years. The extra time meant that each lap was shown in full for the first time rather than just sections of the laps run.Tooheys Top Gun 1989, www.youtube.com
/ref> *

's only ever pole position at Bathurst where he didn't drive a V8 powered

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. It was an Australian automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter which sold cars under its own marque in Australia. In its last thre ...

. It was his first Bathurst pole since

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

(and the last he would set himself), and his first front row start since

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...

. It was also his record 6th Bathurst pole having been fastest qualifier in

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic R ...

and

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

and 1983.
*

Andrew Bagnall Andrew Bagnall is a motor racing driver born in Wellington, New Zealand on 14 February 1947. Career Bagnall raced in the Australian Touring Car Championship in the late 1980s, in the New Zealand Touring Car Championship in 1990, and in some ...

crashed his

Ford Sierra RS500 The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...

on top of The Mountain during the runoff and was allowed to start from 10th position, much like Dick Johnson who crashed his

Ford XE Falcon The Ford Falcon (XE) is a full-size car that was produced by Ford Australia from 1982 until 1984. It was the second iteration of the fourth generation of the Falcon and also included the Ford Fairmont (XE)—the luxury-oriented version. Histor ...

in the runoff in 1983. Unlike Johnson in 1983 however, Bagnall's car was able to be repaired and did not need to be replaced.
* 1989 was the first time that a V8 Holden had not qualified for the Top Ten runoff. The fastest Holden was the #16

Holden Racing Team Walkinshaw Andretti United is an Australian motor racing team based in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. The team currently fields two Holden ZB Commodores in the Supercars Championship for Nick Percat and Chaz Mostert, along with a Porsche 91 ...

VL Commodore SS Group A SV of

Larry Perkins Larry Clifton Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a former racing driver and V8 Supercar team owner from Australia. Biography Early years Growing up on a farm in Cowangie in the Mallee region of Victoria, Larry, the son of racing driver Eddi ...

and defending race winner

Tomas Mezera Tomas Mezera (born 5 November 1958 in Czechoslovakia) is a naturalised Australian racing driver. Mezera won the 1988 Bathurst 1000, and for many years was a member of the Holden Racing Team as both a driver and team manager. Mezera's sporting c ...

in 11th with a 2:19.11 set by Perkins, missing out by only 0.01 seconds to Bagnall's Sierra.
* 1989 saw the only time between

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...

and

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

that a car in which Larry Perkins was listed as a driver did not feature in the runoff.
* 1989 saw the first and so far only time where every car in the Top Ten runoff was powered by a turbocharged engine, with nine Sierra RS500's and the lone

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

of Jim Richards making up the 10 runners.

Official results

Statistics

* Provisional Pole Position – #17 Dick Johnson – 2:16.58 * Pole Position – #05 Peter Brock – 2:15.80 * Fastest Lap – #17 Dick Johnson – 2:19.12 – Lap 2 * Average Speed – 154 km/h * Race time of winning car – 6:30:53.44

References

External links

Tooheys 1000 Bathurst 1989, www.touringcarracing.net
* ttp://autopics.com.au/bathurst-1989/ Images from the 1989 Tooheys 1000, www.autopics.com.au {{Bathurst 1000 races Motorsport in Bathurst, New South Wales Tooheys 1000