Best. Bathurst. Ever.

Bathurst is an endurance race. One thousand kilometres. It takes at least six hours, two drivers, rock-solid reliability and day-long pace to finish it. That means for most of its history, it's had enduro-type finishes, the ones where the competition broke down two hours ago and the winner hangs an arm out the window and cruises to take the flag by three laps, that sort of thing. Up until the 90's, most of Bathurst history was written in outstandingly dominant victories.

In 1994, that wasn't what happened.

Let's set the scene a little: the grumbling V8s are still just a baby category, a brief (it was assumed) 5-litre appendix to a rulebook intended to tide Australian touring cars over until the FIA could make up its mind. The Falcons and Commodores were just meant to keep a place warm for a while... except there were some who could see potential in these cars. Some who were planning a coup.

By design, the race-ready EB Falcons and VP Commodores were primitive in the extreme - the rules demanded a Holden 308 or a Ford Boss 302 engine, with only two valves per cylinder activated by pushrods - a setup that would have been familiar in 1967, although fuel injection and state-of-the-art tuning meant they were still good for 400kW in Bathurst trim. The suspension was virtually stock and almost impossible to adjust. No limited-slip diff meant to get the things to turn you had to unload the inside wheel, making hammering the car over the kerbs standard procedure. Just as planned: these clumsy, cranky machines didn't flow through turns like a tarmac-hugging DTM car, they lurched and skittered and slipped, visibly on the edge of grip, breathing fire on the over-rev. They put on a hell of a show. The crowds loved them, and for their first race in '93 the grids and grandstands alike had doubled from the previous year. All they needed was a good showing on TV to let everyone know they were serious.

That's exactly what they did. Endurance races like Bathurst usually call it a close finish if the runner-up is on the same lap as the winner. Nobody was expecting to measure the 1994 result in tenths...

In the blue corner we had John Bowe, firmly ensconced at Dick Johnson Racing for a decade now, sharing the Shell-sponsored EB Falcon with Dick himself. DJR had made themselves a powerhouse of the 80's with the monstrous turbo Sierra, but clearly Dick hadn't forgotten how to build Falcons either. They were the Establishment; cabinets full of silverware, a full sponsor portfolio, two battle-hardened drivers and a special relationship with Ford.

In the red corner, a young team with a kid driver straight out of the junior formulae: Craig Lowndes. Although one of the most experienced drivers in the sport today, Lowndes is still sometimes called "the Apprentice", and it's a title he wears with pride, because the master was Peter Brock. Peter took Lowndes under his wing off the track as well as on it, more a mentor than Fangio ever was to Stirling Moss. He taught Lowndes how to deal with money, fame, and all the impedimenta of the modern racing driver. He was the best part of this team in 1994: although heir to the legacy of the famous Holden Dealer Team, the new Holden Racing Team was still pretty green and had yet to take its first championship. For the final stint at Bathurst that day his advice was simplicity itself: "Just try and put 25 perfect laps together, and the result will follow."

The result did follow. Lowndes latched onto the back of John Bowe and... well, just watch.

You can see the whole race on YouTube if you've got the time and megs. It's well worth setting aside a day for, because despite trying every year, we still haven't managed to top it: rain, safety cars, hard racing, memorable passes, Peter Brock, Ford vs Holden, a kid taking on the big guns, and a finish that went down to the very last corner. The greatest Bathurst ever.