The 1990 Tooheys 1000 was a motor race held on 30 September 1990 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. The event was open to cars eligible under CAMS Group 3A regulations, commonly known as Group A Touring Cars, with three engine capacity classes. It was the 31st running of the " Bathurst 1000".
The race, which was Round 2 of both the 1990 Australian Endurance Championship and the 1990 Australian Manufacturers' Championship, resulted in an upset victory for British driver Win Percy and 1986 Bathurst 1000 winner Allan Grice in a Holden Racing Team entered Holden Commodore over the Dick Johnson Racing Ford Sierra of Jeff Allam and Paul Radisich and the Perkins Engineering Holden Commodore of Larry Perkins and Tomas Mezera.
The race marked the first Bathurst 1000 victory for the Holden Racing Team and the team's first race win since Larry Perkins won the Group A support race at the Australian Grand Prix in November 1988.
Cars competed in three divisions as follows: [1]
Division 1 featured the turbocharged Ford Sierras, Nissan Skylines and Toyota Supras, the V8 Holden Commodores and a BMW 635CSi.
Division 2 was composed of BMW M3s, a BMW 323i and a Mercedes-Benz 190E.
Division 3 was composed exclusively of various models of Toyota Corolla.
Pos | No | Team | Driver | Car | TTT | Qual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pole | 10 | Allan Moffat Enterprises |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 2:13.94 | 2:15.00 |
2 | 17 | Shell Ultra Hi Racing |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 2:14.17 | 2:14.26 |
3 | 05 | Mobil 1 Racing |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 2:14.71 | 2:14.72 |
4 | 35 | Peter Jackson Racing |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 2:15.77 | 2:14.44 |
5 | 25 | Benson & Hedges Racing |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 2:16.01 | 2:13.84 |
6 | 16 | Holden Racing Team |
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Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV | 2:16.17 | 2:15.62 |
7 | 11 | Perkins Engineering |
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Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV | 2:17.03 | 2:14.82 |
8 | 9 | Allan Moffat Enterprises |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 2:17.97 | 2:15.20 |
9 | 40 | Mark Petch Motorsport |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 2:23.05 | 2:15.32 |
10 | 20 | Benson & Hedges Racing |
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Ford Sierra RS500 | 3:21.93 | 2:13.84 [2] |
* After being fastest qualifier by almost half a second, and breaking
George Fury's
1984 Hardies Heroes record time of 2:13.85 in the process (by just 0.01 seconds), and with his B&H Sierra the fastest car on Conrod Straight at over 290 km/h (180 mph),
Tony Longhurst made a mistake in the shootout and lost over two seconds while teammate
Alan Jones suffered gearbox problems on his shootout lap and did not record a time.
*
Klaus Niedzwiedz, who was only seven after official qualifying,
[3] improved his time by over a second to win his second Top Ten for
Allan Moffat Racing after also winning the "for money only" shootout in
1988.
* The
Gibson Motorsport
Nissan Skyline GT-R of
Jim Richards and
Mark Skaife, which was expected to take pole, failed to make the Top Ten, being only 0.04 behind the 10th placed
Holden Racing Team
Commodore of eventual race winners
Win Percy and
Allan Grice at the end of Friday's qualifying. During the final qualifying session, Richards reportedly matched Longhurst's top speed on Conrod.
* 1990 was the fifth and last time that Allan Grice was the fastest of the
Holden Commodore runners in the Top Ten. Previously he had led the Holden charge in
1982 (pole),
1985 (4th),
1986 (2nd) and
1987 (7th).
*
V8
Holdens were back in the runoff after missing out in
1989, with the
Larry Perkins /
Tomas Mezera car, and the Percy/Grice HRT car qualifying over 4 seconds faster than the Commodores had managed 12 months earlier.
Tony Mulvihill had now retired his Commodore courtesy of a disqualification leading from its clutch failure...