Bathurst 1000: Scott McLaughlin holds out Shane van Gisbergen for epic victoryDavid Long at Bathurst·20:28, October, 13th, 2019.

Scott McLaughlin had to manage fuel while trying to stay ahead of Shane van Gisbergen.
Scott McLaughlin has become the first New Zealand main game driver to win the Bathurst 1000 since Greg Murphy in 2004.
McLaughlin held out compatriot Shane van Gisbergen in a one-lap dash to the line following a safety car. James Courtney finished the race in third position.
In what will rank as one of the most thrilling ever finishes to the Bathurst 1000s, the six-hour 27-minute race came down to just one lap as a crash by another Kiwi, Andre Heimgartner brought out a safety car to bunch up McLaughlin and van Gisbergen.
Van Gisbergen had a little poke to look for a gap on the way up the mountain, but McLaughlin never gave him a chance to take the lead.
"I can't believe I've won the bloody Bathurst 1000', McLaughlin told Murphy when interviewed straight after the race.
The victory also makes it increasingly more likely that McLaughlin will win back to back Supercars championship.
This will go down as the second time van Gisbergen has just missed out on winning the great race, also finishing second in 2016.
It took a while for the race to get going. Firstly there was there was Brodie Kostecki needing to pull over on the formation lap as a cool suit failure meant dry ice was being pumped directly into his helmet.
When they finally got the race underway, Tim Slade put his car into the wall up the mountain, so the safety car came out and it wasn't until 32 minutes after the official start time that the first real lap of racing was completed.
By lap five, McLaughlin had broken a new race lap record with a time of 2:05.619. He kept in front and had built a lead of 3.5 seconds when he came in for a pitstop on lap 17.
On lap 44 van Gisbergen had a problem with his car door not shutting and had to drive with one hand on it trying to keep it closed.
By lap 49 the order was Alex Premat (McLaughlin's co-driver), Chaz Mostert, Jamie Whincup and Cameron Waters, but with all four cars close to each other.
But on the next lap Premat buckled under the pressure of Mostert and locked up his wheels at The Chase, slipping back to third.
Then two laps later Waters went past the Frenchman, who wasn't able to keep up with the pace of the main game drivers.
After 80 of the 161 lap race the top three was James Moffat (Mostert's co-driver), Whincup and McLaughlin. However, Moffat was to lose his place, stalling at a pitstop.
With 50 laps to go the order was McLaughlin, Jamie Whincup, Fabian Coulthard, Waters and Heimgartner.
But there was drama when Jake Kostecki crashed causing a third safety car. Once more there was action in the pits, with Whincup getting ahead of McLaughlin by taking on less fuel.
The race restarted on lap 117 and it would be a struggle for all the drivers to conserve enough fuel so that they could get to the finish making just one more stop.
On lap 123 Mostert took his team-mate Waters out as he lost control of his Mustang at the Chase. Tickford team principal Tim Edwards was clearly less than impressed.
Then there were safety cars after Anton de Pasquale and Alexander Rossi had crashes, but Whincup was able to stay ahead of McLaughlin after refuelling.
Ten laps from the end Gary Jacobson's crash brought the safety car out for a penultimate time and Whincup dived in for fuel, so McLaughlin was back in the lead.
But it was going to be a shoot out between McLaughlin and van Gisbergen for the victory.
With two laps to go, there was one final twist with Heimgartner ploughing his Nissan into the wall at Forrest Elbow.
That took conserving fuel out of the equation and it came down to a one-lap dash and in it McLaughlin was able to stay in the lead.
Stuffhttps://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/motorspor ... ic-victoryWoo hoo what a race!