When the lights flashed green for the 1992 Bathurst 1000, 46 cars sped off, leaving the 47th stranded. Peter Brock had snapped a tailshaft. While the rest of the field managed to avoid the stricken Commodore, half an hour passed before Brock embarked on his first lap, the possibility of his tenth Bathurst win gone.

By lap 20 Skaife was 19 seconds clear of Johnson and well ahead of Percy and Niedzwiedz. Olofsson, coming through the pack, had advanced to fifth. Rain started falling shortly before 11.00 a.m. Most of the field headed to the pits for wet tyres.

Shortly after tragedy struck. The BMW of Denny Hulme glanced the wall and gently angled back across the track before coming to a halt near Caltex Chase. A heart attack had claimed the life of the great New Zealand champion. The race continued under the pace car with the field now bunched-up.

When the pace car peeled off, Richards pulled a mammoth 21 seconds on second-placed Bowe, then 15 seconds the next lap.

Just after midday Lamont’s Commodore and Bosnjak’s Sierra clashed through Caltex Chase, the Holden bursting into flames as it slammed the wall.

With 71 laps down the two Nissans again held sway, Skaife heading Crompton by 20 seconds. Johnson was only five seconds further back but well up on Cecotto. The race was entering one of its wettest periods, which would claim the Ashby/Reed Commodore, which understeered into the bank at Forrest’s Elbow.

After 84 laps the Falcon challenge was over, Jones bringing the big Ford in to retire with what the team said was a fuel pump problem but others insisted was engine failure.

The Sierra grabbed second place on lap 93 but could not match the Nissan in wet or dry conditions — and it still had to change brake pads. This came after 117 laps. Bowe relinquished the lead with a stop of slightly over a minute. Johnson refused to concede defeat and stormed out in pursuit of the Nissan, but the Winfield team was in control.

At 4.00pm Johnson trailed Richards by more than 60 seconds. Johnson got the gap down to 58 seconds just before torrential rain hit again. Richards slid into a wall, smashing the GT-R’s left-front. Forshaw rolled his Corolla at the end of Mountain Straight, suffering a broken ankle in the crash. At Forrest’s Elbow, the Everlast Commodore spun and was collected by Harris’ Commodore and the Bates Corolla. They were joined in the wall by Bargwanna’s Corolla. Richards slid sideways and into the crash scene, where he smashed to a halt in the side of the Daily Planet Commodore.

The race was red-flagged. Making his way safely around the stricken Nissan, Johnson believed he had won the race. He led the remaining cars back to Pit Straight, waving jubilantly to the crowd. But the race rules were clear: in red flag situations results are taken from one lap prior to the crash — in this case it was two laps, in order to accommodate the cars that crashed out during Richards’ accident. Richards/Skaife came in first, Johnson/Bowe second, Olofsson/Crompton third.