Bathurst 24: Hour eight summary

Mount Panorama, Bathurst (NSW) 22-23 November 2003
8th Hour summary at 10 pm Saturday

The Australian Holden Monaro team of Garry Rogers Motorsport completed eight hours in the lead of the second Bathurst 24-Hour race at 10 o'clock tonight.

Peter Brock, who drove a Monaro in his first Bathurst enduro in 1969 and is bidding now for his 10th win, sits just 55 second behind teammate Nathan Pretty, one of last year's co-winners.

At 10 pm, the lead cars had covered 163 laps -- two laps more than the maximum distance of the Bathurst 1000 kms race.

Safety Car caution periods were called at laps 30, 100, 130 and 150 and occupied a total of 29 laps.

In third place and one lap down, the Ferrari 360GT of Austrian team BE Racing, driven by David Brabham, Andrea Montermini, Philipp Peter and Klaus Engelhorn, was consistently one of the fastest cars on track and poised perfectly to take advantage of any slip by the leading pair.

The most significant retirements were the works-backed Morgan Aero 8, with a blown engine just before lap 130.

"The car had been running like clockwork. It just went bang. We'll be back next year bigger and better than ever," lead driver Neil Cunningham said.

Then on lap 150, the Australian PHR Scuderia BMW M3 GTR hit the wall hard in the Cutting, forcing Indonesian driver Maher Algardi to retire.

Porsches 54#, 7# and 6# continued to run in fourth, fifth and sixth places.

The first of the touring cars was the BMW M3 of Peter Boylan, Geoff Morgan, Peter Hansen and Rick Bates, in 11th.

Officially advised retirements from the original field of 45 were cars 66# (Morgan, 97 laps), 75# (Nissan 200SX, 42 laps), 77# (Nissan 350Z, 65 laps) and 40# (BMW, 25 laps).

The weather has been cool and dry all evening, allowing fans to watch the Rugby World Cup final on two big television screens and enjoy a free outdoor concert performed by country singer Adam Brand. <pre> Outright 1. 427# Holden Monaro Tander/Richards/Pretty/McConville 163 laps 2. 05# Holden Brock/Murphy/Bright/Kelly 3. 48# Ferrari 360 Brabham/Montermini/Engelhorn/Peter 4. 54# Porsche GT3 Cup Shearman/Teulan/Fitzgerald/Morris 5. 7# Porsche GT3 Cup Denyer/Quinn/Quinn/Marshall

Class A - 427# Holden Monaro            Tander/Richards/Pretty/McConville
Class B -   7# Porsche GT3 Cup          Denyer/Quinn/Quinn/Marshall
Class D -  27# BMW M Coupe              Russell/King/Stubber/Cramp
Class E -  62# Holden Commodore SS      Loadsman/Luff/Luff/Russell
Class F -  23# BMW M3R                  Lynton/Lynton/Cartwright/Jackson

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