bathurst 1983

The Holden Dealer Team took a controversial, but legal, victory with the team's second Holden VH Commodore SS driven by John Harvey, Peter Brock and Larry Perkins. Harvey and Phil Brock qualified the car but after the #05 car blew its engine on lap 8, Peter Brock and Perkins transferred themselves into Harvey's car. Phil Brock never drove the car on race day and was forced to spectate as his three teammates won the race in the car he qualified in. The car was also the car which Peter Brock and Larry Perkins had won the race in 1982 and updated to 1983 specs, meaning this Holden Commodore became the first race car to win the Bathurst 1000 twice. The Holden Dealer Team Commodore finished a lap ahead of Allan Moffat and Yoshimi Katayama in their Peter Stuyvesant sponsored Mazda RX-7. Third was the STP Roadways Racing Holden Commodore driven by 1982 pole sitter Allan Grice and 1969 winner Colin Bond.

Only three cars in the race were driven by drivers who had both previously won the race. These included the #05 Holden Dealer Team Holden VH Commodore SS of defending race winners Brock and Perkins, the #17 Ford XE Falcon of Dick Johnson and Kevin Bartlett, and the #16 Nissan Bluebird Turbo of Fred Gibson and John French.

Entries were divided into two classes based on engine capacity. The "Over 3000 cc" class featured BMW 635 CSi, Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Falcon, Holden Commodore, Mazda RX-7 and Nissan Bluebird. The "Under 3000 cc" class featured Alfa Romeo GTV6, Audi 5+5, Ford Capri, Isuzu Gemini and Nissan Pulsar. The race for the under 3 litre class was won by Allan "ACE" Cant and Les Grose in the #64 Wideline Windows Ford Capri.

The final order of the first ten grid positions was established in the "Hardies Heroes" session on the day before the race. This involved the fastest eight cars from qualifying plus two others at the discretion of the organisers contesting two, single timed laps, one car at a time. The fastest lap of each car set its grid position.

This was Peter Brock's record 5th pole position at Bathurst having previously taken pole in 1974, 1977, 1978 and 1979. This saw him move one clear of Allan Moffat who had been on pole four times. It was also the last time he would set pole driving a Holden. Dick Johnson crashed in Hardies Heroes destroying his Greens-Tuf Falcon. No other teams objected to the replacement #17 car starting the race from 10th position. 1983 saw the first appearance by BMW in Hardies Heroes with Jim Richards qualifying his JPS Team BMW 635 CSi in 4th place. BMW became the 6th manufacturer to appear in Hardies Heroes following Holden, Ford, Chevrolet, Mazda and Nissan. The BMW was also the first 6 cyl engined car to appear in the runoff. Allan Moffat could only qualify his Mazda RX-7 14th, two places behind teammate Gregg Hansford. The four-cylinder Nissan Bluebird Turbo driven by George Fury was the first non-V8 powered car to start on the front row at Bathurst since Peter Brock started second in 1973 in a 6cyl Holden LJ Torana GTR XU-1. With seven VH Commodore's in the top 10 this was Holden's greatest representation ever in the runoff. Johnson's Falcon was the only Ford in the top 10, the lowest ever number for that manufacturer. This would be matched in 1986 when the Johnson Group A Mustang was the only Ford in the runoff. On the Friday morning before the race, Bob Morris was only at the race as a spectator. Alan Browne asked Morris if he wanted to take his drive in Rusty French's John Sands sponsored Commodore. French had qualified in 31st place. Morris improved on French's time by some 6.3 seconds, putting in a 2:19.1 lap, vaulting the car to 10th and giving it a place in the runoff. Warren Cullen's laps, the fastest of which ultimately netted him 6th on the grid ahead of the likes of Allan Grice and Bob Morris, were left off of Channel 7's half hour highlights package due to the Dick Johnson crash. 1983 was the only time Cullen ever appeared in the Top 10 runoff.

Provisional Pole Position - #05 Peter Brock - 2:15.3 Pole Position - #05 Peter Brock - 2:16.270 Fastest Lap - #25 Peter Brock - 2:18.5 (lap record) Race time of winning car - 6:28:31.6 Average speed of winning car - 158 km/h

Harris/Cooke qualified 30th in the #9 Bendigo Falcon but their car was used to get Johnson/Bartlett back into the race after Johnson crashed the #17 Falcon in Saturday morning's Hardies Heroes. The Harris/Cooke team took part in the race after Johnson's sponsor Ross Palmer acquired the Lawrence/Russell Commodore. The Commodore and Falcon were rebuilt and painted for the race in a marathon effort through Saturday night. After getting stewards and other teams approval the DJR Falcon was allowed to start from 10th while the Bendigo Commodore was allowed to start from position 30. Following the race the Falcon, leased from Harris by Palmer, was returned to the Bendigo Team while the Commodore was returned to Palmer who promptly sold it back to Barry Lawrence.

Andrew Harris had to get permission from one of his sponsors, Melbourne's Jefferson Ford, to use their Ford dealership name on the re-painted Holden Commodore, which was dubbed the Fordore by the team. Harris ended up finishing 10th and winning the Rookie of the Year award.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.