MOTORSPORT: Reynolds and Youlden win gruelling Bathurst 1000

We're popping champagne corks here in the motoring.com.au dungeon, celebrating our man Luke Youlden's victory in an epic Bathurst 1000 yesterday.

It was a win for the good guys, with Luke co-driving David Reynolds to victory for one of the minnows of pitlane, Erebus Motorsport.

And not only did Reynolds and Youlden salute, the team's second Holden Commodore driven by Dale Wood and Chris Pither came home fourth, delivering pitlane's only female team owner Betty Klimenko her greatest day in the category.

But the surprises didn't stop there.

On a day defined by wet weather that persisted until the closing stages of this seven hour 11-minute marathon, the Walkinshaw Racing Holden Commodore crew of Scott Pye and Warren Luff were a deserved second, leading home Fabian Coulthard and Tony D'Alberto in the DJRTP Ford Falcon FG X.

Coulthard also took back the championship lead, as his record-shattering pole qualifying team-mate Scott McLaughlin and Jamie Whincup in the factory Commodore both struck engine dramas. McLaughlin and Alex Premat weren't classified, while Whincup trundled around for the last two laps of the race to be classified 20th with Paul Dumbrell.

There were so many great aspects to this result; Youlden winning at his 18th attempt the year after being given his marching orders from DJR Team Penske; Reynolds winning after being sacked by Ford team Prodrive Racing Australia despite finishing third in the championship in 2015; Alistair McVean engineering the car to the win a little over 12 months after being benched by the Holden Racing Team.

And then there's Klimenko, the billionaire shopping centre heiress who spent an estimated $30-$40 million on a failed Mercedes-AMG Supercars project before swapping to customer Holdens last year, shifting her race base from Queensland to Melbourne and hiring Reynolds and a whole new crew.

"Right place, right time let me tell you. Little team of rejects as we call ourselves, all working together," Youlden said post-race.

"Every time I have driven the car this year it has been really fast. I love working with Dave, with Al, Betty and the entire team. My first time here it was very similar conditions, a bit more experience under the belt now and 18 years to get here. I've come close a few times but it feels surreal to finally be the winners of the mountain."

Watch out for more from Luke soon. He'll write his own story for us about his best-ever week at Mount Panorama.

After Reynolds qualified second, he and Youlden ran at the front or close to it all day. The key moment came on lap 146 when Reynolds surged inside Nick Percat's Brad Jones Racing Commodore for the lead at turn one, the two cars smacking into each other as they raced up Mountain Straight.

The 32-year old carefully negotiated one final safety car restart on lap 156 after Simona de Silvestro crashed her Nissan on the front straight, quickly re-establishing a gap over Pye and eventually winning by just under four seconds.

Plenty of others were in contention for the podium or the win and contrived to miss out in the treacherous conditions:

The carsales.com.au Nissan Altima of Todd Kelly and Jack Le Brocq benefitted from the carnage and the late slew of safety cars, fighting back from a lap down to be seventh, just behind team-mates Michael Caruso and Dean Fiore. Jason Bright and rookie Garry Jacobson – another wet weather star – were first PRA Falcon home in eighth, despite the four-car squad tallying up 99 laps in the lead of the race.

Perhaps the most meritorious result of all was ninth for Tim Slade/Andre Heimgartner. Slade crashed on Thursday, his regular co-driver Ash Walsh was ruled out on Friday because of fractured ribs sustained in a sportscar testing crash the week before. In Slade's final marathon stint the drink system, cool suit and fan system in the Freightliner Commodore failed and he had to be hauled exhausted from the car with a few laps to go, leaving Heimgartner to finish off for an unlikely top 10 result.

Virgin Australia Supercars Championship pointscore

1 Fabian Coulthard Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X 2431
2 Jamie Whincup Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VF 2340
3 Scott McLaughlin Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X 2334
4 Chaz Mostert Supercheap Auto Racing Ford Falcon FG X 2208
5 Shane van Gisbergen Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VF 2142
6 David Reynolds Erebus Penrite Racing Holden Commodore VF 1803
7 Craig Lowndes Team Vortex Holden Commodore VF 1734
8 Mark Winterbottom The Bottle-O Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X 1671
9 Garth Tander Wilson Security Racing GRM Holden Commodore VF 1608
10 Cameron Waters Monster Energy Racing Ford Falcon FG X 1564