In the Saturday shoot-out, Skaife poled, Murphy was third, Bargwana fifth, But that all went out the window during the Sunday warm-up; Bargs walled the car (nicknamed “The Pram” by HRT wrenches) and was out.  He and Noske manfully faced the press an hour later before beetling away.  It would take some time before the little guy re-established his career. 

The race started with remarkably, Brock in the lead car.  Since announcing his retirement in May, the great man had lived on an almost minute-to-minute timetable and many had assumed that Skaife, who had done much of the set-up work in the preceding week, would start. 

And what a start, alongside and behind, Glenn Seton and Murphy hesitated, allowing Larry Perkins to challenge Brock in the first corner.  The HRT car responded and, in his first flyer was a 2m 13.10s, his second a 12.49.  Larry responded with a 12.33, the lap record which still stands today but with 1000km in mind that was as far as the sprint race went.  Brock inexorably pulled away; he had a small but telling gap when Murphy barged into second on Mountain Straight on lap 26. 

The first stops loomed.  At the end of lap 31, Seton, in fourth, pitted and resumed and then, suddenly tyres appeared from everywhere. Up the pit lane at Perkin’s four new Dunlops and Russell Ingall waited; at HRT, eight tyres were readied for Skaife and Lowndes.  They were going to pit both cars, which were about two seconds apart, together.  After 26 seconds of toil, #05 and #15 returned to formation. 

Brock eased his way through crowded bunker and grabbed a seat and a drink.  Amid the usual flurry of engineers, used tyres and pyrometers, the driving career of Australia’s own touring car legend was over – not that we realised it at the time…

Six laps into his stint, Lowndes was forced off line by a lapped car and was into the wall.  Then, on lap 51, Skaife had the engine go sour on the run up Mountain Straight; it had backfired through the airbox and burnt out some wiring.

Skaife pitted, the team fussed around for a while, but that was that, Peter Brock was done. 
A friend of mine, one of Europe’s top photographers, came to Bathurst in 1995, He has shot Formula 1, DTM, BTCC and all the big events, without ever having asked a driver for an autograph. 

On his first trip to Bathurst, he lined up, waited like everyone else, and asked Peter Brock to sign – which, of course, he did.  That’s the effect that Brock’s career has had on our sport.  To be there and witness its conclusion was really something… 

The HRT car responded, and in his final race, Brock took the lead and the world went bananas

Brock leading the 1997 Primus 1000 at Bathurst, hurtles through The Dipper in the Mobil Holden Racing Team Commodore in his final drive.