The Grove Racing Mustang driver came under heavy attack from the PremiAir Racing Camaro, which had a five-second post-race time penalty hanging over it.
Amid a sea of nervous tension back in the Grove garage, Payne yielded to Golding as they started the last lap to focus instead on holding out David Reynolds behind.
“I didn’t really want to let him go. I really wanted to win it outright, you know, be first across the line,” admitted Payne.
“But I just felt like we kind of slowed up a little bit there when the track started to dry out a bit.
“Jimmy was so fast in the wet and he was probably a bit better than us when it was drier, so his thing came alive.
“I just had to give him the position and Dave was so close behind me, we had to focus on that.”
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The battle between the Penrite Mustang and Nulon Camaro allowed Reynolds to close a near two second margin ahead of the last lap commencing.
Reynolds piled the pressure onto his former teammate Payne, including a cheeky look around the outside at The Cutting in which the two cars almost collided.
Payne held on to cross the line between Golding and Reynolds, becoming the second Bathurst winner in 10 years to greet the chequered flag second.
It also happened in 2016, when Will Davison – driving for the Tekno Autosports team that now exists as PremiAir – trailed a penalised Jamie Whincup to the flag.
The Penrite Mustang that Payne shared with Garth Tander only led four of Sunday’s 161 laps in what is being lauded as one of the all-time great Bathurst 1000s.
It’s being compared to the 2014 epic, when Chaz Mostert took the lead for the first time on the final lap as Whincup ran dry on fuel.
“I’ll always look back and see 2014 as one of the best I’ve ever watched,” said Payne.
“Hopefully this year can go down as somewhere on par with that. I think that would be pretty epic.”
Sixth Bathurst 1000 win a ‘very different feeling’ for Tander
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