Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup have maintained their recent dominance of the Bathurst 1000, completing a three-peat at Mount Panorama in an actioned-packed race that saw several pace-car interventions.
The Team Vodafone pair held off four-time winner Greg Murphy – who was Lowndes’ team-mate when both won the classic endurance race for the first time in 1996 - and Jason Richards in the Sprint Gas Racing Commodore by two-and-a-half seconds after just under six-and-a-half hours of racing.
In the process, Lowndes and Whincup became the first men in 24 years to win three successive titles, joining motor-racing legends Peter Brock, Jim Richards and Larry Perkins.
Murphy and Richards were the best-placed Holden team for the second year in a row, following their fourth placing in the 2007 event.
"This is absolutely massive," Murphy said afterwards.
"To be up here on the podium again is unbelievable. I can't believe we did it. Jason and the team did a sensational job."
"It was fantastic to be able to chase down the leader; it's been a while since we've been able to do that."
"The car was fast right through to the end."
James Courtney steered the Jeld-Wen Falcon he shared with David Besnard past Steven Richards, driving for Ford Performance Racing alongside Mark Winterbottom, with less than two of the 161 laps remaining to snare third spot on the podium.
Courtney admitted he was as surprised as anyone to claim a podium finish.
"I thought the day was done when we thought we had broken the rear roll bar," he said.
"But we were able to come back and it's a credit to the team and to David that they never gave up."
"I was pretty determined in that last stint; I double stinted and I was taking no prisoners."
"I pushed like crazy to get up there and used up a lot of the brakes and tyres coming through. When I saw that Richo (Steven Richards) was having problems I jumped at the opportunity to pass."
"It's a great achievement for SBR and myself to be on the podium three years in a row and David two in a row."
Brad Jones and Max Wilson piloted their Holden home in fifth, ahead of Will Davison and Steve Johnson, Dean Canto and Luke Youlden and Jack Perkins and Nathan Pretty.
Jason Bright and Adam Macrow and Fabian Coulthard and Alex Davison rounded out the top ten.
Five-time Bathurst winner Mark Skaife and his Holden Racing team-mate Garth Tander finished 12th after a horror day on the mountain, which started with Tander stranded on the starting line in pole position.
The clutch slipped leaving Tander standing, he was last into the first corner, and was subsequently handed a 10-second penalty for jumping the start.
Around 100 laps into the race Skaife narrowly missed an encounter with the wall, only to hit it a few laps later and again after that, as he battled steering problems.