The 2000 FAI 1000 was the fourth running of the Australia 1000 race, first held after the organisational split over the Bathurst 1000 that occurred in 1997. It was the 37th anniversary of the original touring car endurance race held 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 ...

in 1963. It was the 43rd race that traces its lineage back to the

1960 Armstrong 500 The 1960 Armstrong 500 was an endurance motor race for Australian made or assembled standard production sedans. The event was held at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Victoria, Australia on 20 November 1960 over 167 laps of the 3.0 mile ...

held at Phillip Island. It was held on 19 November 2000 at the

just outside Bathurst and was the thirteenth and final round of the

2000 Shell Championship Series The 2000 Shell Championship Series was an Australian motor racing series open to V8 Supercars. The championship, which was the second Shell Championship Series, began on 11 February at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit and ended on 19 Nove ...

for V8 Supercars. The race was held in mostly wet conditions which resulted in several safety car periods. As a result, the average race speed was the slowest since the

1974 Bathurst 1000 The 1974 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 was an endurance race for Group C Touring Cars, held at the Mount Panorama Circuit near Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia on 6 October 1974. The race was Round 3 of the 1974 Australian Manufacturers' Cham ...

Entry list

Report

Thanks to a weeks' worth of rain and a record-breaking 13 safety cars the time it was the slowest 1000 since 1974, when the rain that day in the last 50 laps was torrential. The race itself would become one of the all time classics. Several drivers spun off on their shootout lap on Saturday giving Wayne Gardner, who had spent most of the previous two years racing for Toyota in the Japanese GT Championship instead of V8's, pole position. His co-driver Neal Bates should have been very good in the conditions, but flew off the road at McPhillamy Park early in his first stint and the 2nd Glenn Seton Racing cars' day was done prematurely. The defending champions in

Steven Richards Steven James Richards (born 11 July 1972) is a New Zealand-Australian racing driver, currently competing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship. Richards, the son of seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner Jim Richards, is himself a five-t ...

and

Greg Murphy Gregory Murphy (born 23 August 1972) is a New Zealand professional racing driver, best known as a four-time winner of the Bathurst 1000. Greg Murphy joined Jeremy Clarkson and James May presenting Top Gear Live, when it had its first internati ...

much like in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

didn't make the top 10 in qualifying but quickly made up ground in the race. However overheating problems for the #7 car slowed their pace on track and forced them throughout the race to add in buckets of ice and water to cool the engine, and the chance for Richards to get his 3rd Bathurst win in a row and Murphys' 3rd in 5 years evaporated away, but they drove well enough to just keep the #17 Johnson/

McLean MacLean, also spelt Maclean and McLean, is a Gaelic surname Mac Gille Eathain, or, Mac Giolla Eóin in Irish Gaelic), Eóin being a Gaelic form of Johannes (John). The clan surname is an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic "Mac Gille Eathain" ...

car behind at the end of the race. The #9 Stone Brothers Racing Falcon with veteran Tony Longhurst and rookie David Besnard had a dramatic day; Longhurst spun off very early in the race, made contact with the wall resulting in bent steering, made 9 pitstops when only 4 were compulsory, have their car catch fire at one point and yet still led the race with 11 laps to go until Longhurst made contact with

Adam Macrow Adam Macrow (born 23 November 1978, in Victoria) is a professional race car driver. In 1985, he started his motorsports career in karting. Over his time spent in karts, he won two national titles and ten Victorian titles. In 1995, he moved out o ...

and both cars ended up in the wall. From there Garth Tander took the race lead and win, holding off a vengeful Paul Radisich after his late-race retirement a year earlier. Going into the race the championship battle between Tander and Mark Skaife was still to be decided; if Tander won Skaife would need to finish 17th or better to win the title. The Holden Racing Team duo of Skaife and Craig Lowndes were battling Neil Crompton and Glenn Seton for the lead more than two-thirds of the race distance in until on pit straight at the start of lap 114 BTCC ace Matt Neal, 3 laps down and having just been passed by Crompton, decided to start racing them and dived up the inside of race leader Crompton exiting the first corner on the outside and ahead of Crompton and briefly leaving the track. This led to Skaife colliding with Crompton in turn 1 with Skaife's Commodore ripping the front bodywork off Crompton's Falcon which was forced off the left of the track on pit exit. Damage to the right rear wheel well of the Commodore required pitting to repair as it lead to severe tyre wear and a puncture. Neal was given a 60-second stop and go penalty shortly afterwards. Skaife recovered to 6th and claimed his 3rd ATCC/V8 Supercars championship while Crompton finished three laps down. The race marked the last of many Bathurst entries for privateer Terry Finnigan (whose car had an engine failure during the warm-up and thus did not start) and 1987 Bathurst winner David Parsons, among many other smaller names as the series slowly began to cull the less professional entries.

Results

Pre-Qualifying

Qualifying

Top ten shootout

Starting grid

Race

Statistics

* Provisional Pole Position - #1 Mark Skaife - 2:11.8882 * Pole Position - #6 Wayne Gardner - 2:28.3844 * Fastest Lap - #1 Craig Lowndes - 2:14.2602 * Average Speed - 135 km/h

References

External links

Official V8 Supercar website

CAMS Manual reference to Australian titles

Photos from Autopics.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:2000 Fai 1000

FAI 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 ...

Motorsport in Bathurst, New South Wales