Allan Grice

Grice made 26 starts at Bathurst between 1968 and 2002, placing him sixth on the all-time starts list. He accumulated seven podium finishes: two wins (1986, 1990), four second places (1978, 1982, 1991, 1995), and a third (1983). He holds the record for the most Bathurst 1000 drives before a first victory among drivers who eventually won the race — sixteen starts before his 1986 triumph.

Driving a Holden VK Commodore SS Group A owned by co-driver Graeme Bailey and prepared by his longtime team Roadways Racing, Grice recorded the first 100 mph average lap in a Group A car around the 6.172 km circuit, posting a time of 2:16.16. He and Bailey led for all but twelve of the 163 laps, with Grice driving 137 of them.

British Touring Car Championship driver Win Percy, brought in by Tom Walkinshaw to revive the Holden Team, chose Grice as his co-driver against Walkinshaw's wishes. Carrying a shoulder injury, Percy left the bulk of the testing and race driving to Grice. The pair prevailed in a Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV against a field that included multiple turbocharged Ford Sierras.

Grice began driving for the Craven Mild Racing team in 1974 and won several rounds in the 1975 Australian Touring Car Championship before being disqualified from three rounds following a protest by Holden Dealer Team manager Harry Firth, who established that the thermostat from Grice's engine had been placed in the glovebox. Firth's lead driver Colin Bond went on to win the championship. Grice's lost points from the remaining rounds after his appeal was upheld ended any title hopes.

He broke through at Bathurst in 1978, finishing second behind Peter Brock, and also won the 1978 and 1979 Australian Sports Sedan Championships in Frank Gardner's Chevrolet Corvair. Grice drove for the Craven Mild-backed JPS Team BMW from 1980, but a difficult relationship with team manager Gardner — who was critical of Grice's aggressive driving style — ended with Grice's dismissal at the end of 1981. The animosity between the two persisted until Gardner's death in 2009.

After contemplating retirement, Grice was offered a drive at Bathurst 1982 by Re-Car owner Alan Browne. He qualified fastest, and he and Browne finished second after early battles with Peter Brock. He took third in 1983 in an STP-sponsored Roadways Commodore shared with Colin Bond.

Grice won the final ATCC race run under CAMS Group C rules at Adelaide International Raceway in 1984, finishing less than a second ahead of Brock, with series champion Dick Johnson third. That same year he won the Australian GT Championship driving a DeKon Chevrolet Monza, qualifying on pole and winning all but one round. He also appeared at the 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Charles Ivey Racing Porsche 956 with Alain de Cadenet and Chris Craft, qualifying 32nd but retiring with engine failure after 274 laps.

In 1987 Grice became the first Australian driver to qualify for NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He was prominent in Australian NASCAR events at the Calder Park Thunderdome, qualifying third in his Foster's-sponsored Oldsmobile Delta 88 for the 1988 Goodyear NASCAR 500 — the first NASCAR race held outside North America — before a brake failure resulted in a crash on lap 80 that left him with a broken collarbone.

In 1988 Grice drove a Nissan Skyline HR31 GTS-R for Nissan Motorsport Europe in the European Touring Car Championship alongside Percy and Swedish driver Anders Olofsson, finishing sixth outright at the Spa 24 Hours. He also won the inaugural Bathurst 12 Hour in 1991, sharing a Toyota Supra Turbo with Peter Fitzgerald and Nigel Arkell.

Grice competed in his last full ATCC season in 1987 and made occasional returns thereafter, with his final ATCC race at the 1995 Oran Park round in a Ford EF Falcon for Glenn Seton Racing. He ended his ATCC career with ten round victories. His final Bathurst start came in 2002, which prompted a brief comeback in the V8 Utes series where he won races and achieved a best championship position of sixth.