Motor racing legend Jacky Ickx returned to Bathurst last week, 45 years since he last drove the iconic circuit and 48 years since his Bathurst 1000 victory in a Ford Falcon XC V8, with team-mate Allan Moffat.

Ickx, who turned 80 on New Year’s Day, started out racing motorcycles in 1960 before competing in Formula One in 1967, winning eight Grands Prix and scoring 25 podiums. The Belgian simultaneously tackled the world of endurance racing, winning the 24 Hour race of Le Mans a then-record six times, and in 1977 achieved his famous Bathurst 1000 win - the first time he had ever driven the track.
These days he's an ambassador for Genesis, Hyundai's global luxury brand, and took both the X Gran Berlinetta Concept (a PlayStation Gran Turismo digital car made real) and GV60 Magma Concept (a prototype of a forthcoming production EV) on demonstration laps, during the 12 Hour endurance-race weekend at the end of January.
The Genesis connection may not mean much to Kiwis - the brand is not currently sold here - but Ickx is a legend everywhere. He visited New Zealand in 2018, to celebrate the life of another team-mate, Chris Amon, and the re-naming of Manfeild to Circuit Chris Amon.

Did Ickx remember his way around Bathurst? “It’s been a while but what I felt and noticed was that, like all the world’s greatest motor racing circuits - Monaco, Nürburgring or Spa - it has barely changed over the years. They’ve put a kink in that giant Conrod Straight to slow people down, but it’s still a fantastically challenging track with plenty of rise and fall”.
He was united with the XC V8 at Bathurst, where he handed over the winning trophy from 1977 to the Bathurst Town Mayor, Robert Taylor.

At the request of Allan Moffat, the trophy will now be permanently displayed in the National Motor Racing Museum (Mount Panorama), next to the Falcon.
Moffat, now 85, has been living with Alzheimer's disease since 2019 and is currently a Dementia Australia Patron. Since 2022 there has been a social media group dedicated to renaming Mount Panorama's Conrod Straight after Moffat, in recognition of the role his spectacular racing played in popularising The Great Race.