Jim Richards
It's been caged up for 12 months, but there's no holding back now.
I'm letting my inner Bogan out tomorrow.
It's Bathurst 1000 time again, and I'm taking Sunday off from the Wanganui Chronicle to head to New Plymouth and the man cave of my good mates, including Wanganui expats, for seven hours of barbecue, pool, darts, and a V8 simulator game, all while we watch the great race unfold on the big screen.
Bathurst is the purest embodiment of motor racing strategy, driver courage, technological advancement, and car manufacturer rivalry - a combustible combination of mechanical marvels and human drama that hooks you in for the long duration and refuses to let you go until the chequered flag is waving.
It is also the host of tradition. Being a Ford man, I eagerly await my annual text exchange with a close mate in Christchurch, a Holden disciple, as the 'winner' between us usually has his victory message all cued up to send just as the final lap is completed.
Bitter foes? Hardly. It is this love of motorsport which for one day makes the 786km distance between us disappear.
Similar stories from the Mount Panorama circuit and living rooms across the southern hemisphere are played out every year.
So, being the sort to go back and study the history of sports which generate such passion, here is my selection of the best and most controversial moments from Bathurst folklore, which helped build the wonderful tapestry of Australasia's greatest spectacle on four wheels.
It's a Dick on a rock
He had always been respected as a good journeyman driver who ran his own team on the smell of an oily rag, but October 5, 1980, was the day the legend of Dick Johnson was truly born.
Having sunk all of his money into his 'Tru-Blu' Ford Falcon, Johnson was having the drive of his life when on Lap 17 at 'The Cutting', a rock dislodged by two drunken idiots to use as a backrest rolled onto the track from the hillside above.
As officials were removing another crashed car nearby, the Queenslander had nowhere to go and saw his wheels, and heart, broken by the boulder.
Back at pitlane, what started as the most emotional TV interview you would ever see from the staunch Johnson with visiting American commentator Chris Economaki, suddenly turned into a live telethon.
Upset callers jammed the Channel 7 switchboards, pledging money to help the self-made battler rebuild his car.
With the money raised invested in a brand-new Falcon Johnson returned in 1981 and was again leading when a giant pile-up behind him saw the race red-flagged, handing him the first of his three Bathurst wins.
The Mountain can taketh away, but it can also giveth.
When Jim told them how it was
While the tradition of Ford vs Holden has become a bit diluted by the addition of Mercedes and Volvo, and the return of Nissan teams in recent times, the depth of feeling in brand rivalry sunk to its biggest low on October 4, 1992, which even a deluge of water could not wash away.
In what was Nissan's last year at Bathurst for two decades, veteran Jim Richards and a young Mark Skaife claimed a farewell win in contentious circumstances when a massive rainstorm swept the track, causing officials to abandon the waterlogged racing with 18 laps remaining.
Richards had just joined the massive list of casualties by crashing out on slick tyres, but was still awarded the win, per the rules, because he was leading when results were backdated by two laps.
For the first time, hardcore Ford and Holden barrackers were united as they all showered Richards and Skaife with boos, insults and beer cans when they walked out to the podium.
Richards, already emotional after the death of Kiwi racing legend and friend Denny Hulme at the track from heart failure, was in no mood for the immature and disrespectful barbs and handed out perhaps the biggest tongue-lashing in a victory speech ever.
"I thought Australian race fans had a lot more to go than this. This is bloody disgraceful," he fumed from the balcony.
"This is going to remain with me for a long time. You're a pack of a***holes."
The man they call Frosty
It is extraordinary for a 1000km endurance race that takes around seven hours, with all the calamities which can occur from busted gearboxes and blown tyres, through to paint-brushing concrete walls at speeds up to 300km/h, that the winning margin for the last five years has been less than a second.
The days of Peter Brock winning by six laps in 1979 are long gone and this was no better typified than the stunning final four minutes on October 13 last year when Mark 'Frosty' Winterbottom needed ice-water in his veins to hold off the charging Holden of Jamie Whincup in perhaps the greatest finish of all time.
You literally sat on the edge of your seat as the pair went bumper to bumper through turns where there was just no room, holding your breath to see if they would both make it out the other side, let alone who would have the lead.
Scorching across the finish line in 6h 11m 27.9s, the two rivals completed the fastest Bathurst on record.
After 11 years without a podium finish at the Mountain personally, Winterbottom brought home the first win by a Ford car since 2008 and the first for the official factory-backed team since the 1970s.
It made the annual text exchange with my Christchurch mate both courteous and emotional, even with his disappointment, because we could both agree we had just seen an instant classic.
The Lap of the Gods
If you're a Kiwi cricket tragic, you remember Lance Cairns taking his Excalibur bat and swatting Australia's bowlers all around the MCG in 1983.
If you're a rugby aficionado, you remember Dan Carter single-handedly taking apart the 2005 British Lions in Wellington.
And if you're a petrolhead, you remember the day that 'Murph' tamed the Mountain.
It was Greg Murphy's finest hour on October 11, 2003, when he broke the 2m 7s barrier during the top ten shootout qualifier in a perfectly-prepared Holden VY Commodore.
Even after admitting he made one slight error where he hooked first gear instead of third coming out of the 'Dipper', Murphy drove the right line on every inch of the winding circuit for a scorching 2m 6.859s time, which earned him a rare standing ovation from every team as he came back down pit road.
Seven years later, Craig Lowndes would just beat the mark with a 2m 6.801s lap, but somehow after the modifications to the cars in the preceding times, plus the fact it was a practice run without any pressure, it just did not seem to mean as much as the Kiwi's effort on that magic day.