1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000

The 1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 was the 21st running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race. It was held on 5 October 1980 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia. The race was open to cars eligible under the locally developed CAMS Group C Touring Car regulations with four engine capacity based classes.

Peter Brock and Jim Richards won their third consecutive Bathurst 1000 debuting the Holden Commodore for the Holden Dealer Team. In taking a one lap win over Peter Janson and Larry Perkins, Brock Brock won his fifth Bathurst 1000, breaking the record for most wins in the history of the race. Janson and Perkins finished second for the second successive year and finished three laps ahead of Ian Geoghegan and Paul Gulson as Commodores filled the first seven positions.

The race is most famous for the specatacular retirement of the Ford Falcon of Dick Johnson. The 1980 Australian Touring Car Championship had featured one of the smallest fields in its then twelve years as a multi-race championship. The championship was dominated by Brock, with only two or three other cars competitive. The emergence of mid-field Ford driver Johnson into a race winning threat just one month prior to Bathurst revitalised interest, more so when Johnson qualified on the front row of the grid, alongside the pole-setting Chevrolet Camaro of Kevin Bartlett and ahead of Brock. Johnson ran away from the field at the start and Brock dropped a lap behind Johnson after a clash with a back-marker Holden Gemini. Johnson crashed heavily into the wall just after the Cutting on lap 17 after clipping a large rock on the track when presented with other options as a slow-moving tow truck carrying a dead-car blocked the other side of the track. A distraught Johnson subsequently appeared on television stating he had dedicated all of his finances in a final shot at the winning the race after ten years as a competent mid-fielder. Telecaster ATN7 set up a telethon to raise money to get Johnson back into racing in 1981.