For the first time the Bathurst 1000 was a round of the Australian Touring Car Championship and drivers had to now focus not only on winning the biggest race of the year, but also had to take into consideration their championship standings. Pushing too hard for a win and ending in the wall could prove detrimental for the championship, especially with Bathurst being the last race.
Craig Lowndes entered the race with a 54-point lead over
Russell Ingall, 172 on
Garth Tander, 226 on
Glenn Seton and 250 on team-mate
Mark Skaife, with 300 points on offer for the race winner. With Ingall and
Larry Perkins not quite on pace and a rare mistake when Larry missed the call from his crew to pit in under an early safety car, along with a tyre puncture, Lowndes' 2nd place with
Cameron McConville was more than enough to secure him his 3rd and final title, the
Holden Racing Team staging a 2-3 formation finish. In 1998
Jason Bright crashed the #4 car in practice, and with great strategy and good driving won the race – but begun the 1999 edition in the same fashion as Bright once again crashed, this time at McPhillamy Park. However early in the race in the packed pitlane caused chaos under an early safety car, with
Craig Baird dragging the pit boom for the #4 car down pitlane after a mistake from the team. Further technical problems during the race on ended any chance of them repeating their 1998 success. A record entry in the V8 Supercars era of 57 cars (one unlikely to be broken) had to be whittled down to the track maximum of 55 for the race, yet in the first half of the race the attrition from driver mistakes was still as prevalent as ever and the safety car received a lot of running. FAI Insurance had a $100,000 prize if the winner could break the 1991 race record, however thanks to a then-record 10 safety cars they got nowhere near it – FAI did give
Mark Larkham a consolation $25,000 for getting pole position. Larkham broke not just the V8 track record but Neil Allen's 1970 pre-Chase record in qualifying that he set in a
Formula 5000 car. In the race their engine let go before half distance.
Garth Tander was another frontrunner, but crashed into
Tomas Mezera when he suffered an oil leak-induced spin.
Simon Wills was leading in
John Faulkner's car mid-race but spun going into the Cutting and found the wall.
John Bowe got the underdog
PAE Motorsport Falcon as high as 5th before engine failure put he and six-time winner
Jim Richards out of the race.
David Brabham had a rear tyre explode entering the Chase which saw the
Wayne Gardner Racing car lift up into the air then spin around, luckily not collecting any of the cars around him as he flew back over the track and ended up half parked in the sandtrap.
Paul Radisich and
Steve Ellery dominated most of the race in the #18 car, with Radisich on course for victory but with 20 laps to go clipped a slower car and received a puncture, damaging the front bodywork as he went over the kerbs entering pitlane. The bodywork damage would later block the radiator and put the
Dick Johnson Racing Falcon out with overheating issues, Radisich parking the AU on Mountain Straight.
Greg Murphy and
Steven Richards both won their 2nd Bathurst 1000, Richards becoming the first driver to win Bathurst in both a Ford and a Holden. They started the race in 12th but quickly floated towards the front of the field, and were the closest challengers to Radisich and Ellery all race. It would be the last of 26 starts for 3-time winner
Dick Johnson, who also made his 21st Top 10 shootout – a record having taken part in all shootouts (excluding 1998) since 1978. His co-driver and son
Steven had been racing for a podium against
Paul Morris with about 50 laps to go before spinning at the Chase, but was able to keep going and Dick finished his Bathurst career in 4th place. Long-time privateer Alan “Scotty” Taylor made his last of 18 starts, with his 7-year-old
Commodore retiring very early on with engine failure. The race would see the debuts of both
2012 winner Paul Dumbrell (breaking the record for youngest starter in the 1000 at the time) and runner-up
Dean Canto, however both were out of the race inside 50 laps having been involved in (separate) crashes. Paul Morris received the "Rookie of the Year" award despite having made multiple starts in the race previously.
Geoff Full and
Rodney Forbes won the Privateer's Cup, and even led a few laps during the race on an alternate strategy before being spun out by John Bowe.
Cameron McLean and
John Cleland were on track to win the class but a crash heading to Reid Park ended their day prematurely, unceremoniously caught in the background of the telecast. ==Results==