The Peter Brock Trophy has made an appearance in the United States with 2019 Repco Bathurst 1000 winner, Scott McLaughlin.
The Team Penske driver was photographed with the famous piece of silverware at the weekend’s Detroit Grand Prix IndyCar event, which is promoted by the Penske Corporation.
It is understood that the Peter Brock Trophy was sent Stateside by Supercars as part of the build-up to this year’s Bathurst 1000, which represents the 60th anniversary of the Great Race.
Winners of the Mount Panorama touring car enduro are, of course, a significant part of the marketing campaign and pre-race feature stories every year, but the six-decade milestone makes for an especially significant build-up this time around, with McLaughlin now able to play a part in that.
The Bathurst 1000 traces its lineage back to a 500-mile race at Phillip Island in 1960, an event which was moved to Mount Panorama in 1963 when the Victorian venue had deteriorated to a state which made it unsuitable as a host.
Harry Firth/Bob Jane won the 1963 Bathurst enduro, the ‘Armstrong 500’, in a Ford Cortina Mk.1 GT, completing the 130 laps adding up to 802.36km in 7:46:59.1s.
The race went metric in 1973, with a prescribed lap count of 163 laps, before that figure dropped to 161 when the introduction of The Chase in 1987 lengthened the circuit from 6.172km to 6.213km.
McLaughlin and Alexandre Premat won the 2019 Bathurst 1000 in a Gen2 Ford Mustang entered by DJR Team Penske in a time of 6:27:51.5260s, a relatively slow victory in modern days due to the eight Safety Car periods adding up to 17 laps.
Had an old friend visit me in Detroit! #bathurst1000 @supercars pic.twitter.com/cyUcBeRtl5
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin93) June 4, 2023
That triumph is the most recent for a Ford in the Great Race, with Holden ZB Commodores first to the chequered flag in the three subsequent years, entered by Triple Eight Race Engineering (twice, including as the factory Holden Racing Team in 2020) and Walkinshaw Andretti United.
The Peter Brock Trophy was instituted in 2006 following the death of its namesake in a rally crash one month earlier.
Brock’s protégé, Craig Lowndes, was the first to lift the trophy when he and Jamie Whincup clinched an emotional victory which began a threepeat for the duo and Triple Eight Race Engineering.
In the 17 years since the trophy’s inception, a total of 18 different drivers have won the Bathurst 1000, led by Lowndes on six occasions (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2015, 2018).
He will be among 10 winners in this year’s field, as it stands, with WAU’s #25 entry of Chaz Mostert/Lee Holdsworth comprised of the only two drivers to have done so as a pairing, in 2021.
Grove Racing may, however, elect to have David Reynolds and Garth Tander drive together, with the former a winner in 2017 and the latter in 2000, 2009, 2011, 2020, and 2022.
The 2023 Bathurst 1000 takes place on October 5-8.
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