AS one of the greatest Australian sporting events rolls around this weekend, the folklore of the Bathurst 1000 is lovingly pulled from the archive and celebrated.

Names etched into the side of the mountain — Moffat, Johnson, Richards, Perkins, Skaife — are regaled and rejoiced.

We know by heart the incredible victories of the King of the Mountain Peter Brock, a nine-time winner, who redefined what guts and glory looked like in the most gruelling endurance race in the country.

And his protégé, the modern-day hero of Mount Panorama, Craig Lowndes. A smiling assassin who has conquered the famed race on six occasions, his most compelling victory in 2006 alongside Jamie Whincup when they became the inaugural winners of the Peter Brock Trophy.

But in its 58th year, there are still tales we haven’t heard, moments we haven’t completely explained or comprehended and names that are still relatively unknown. Like Ransom, Beaumont and Bennett, a few of the 31 women to have contested The Great Race whose stories are a mystery.

Christine Gibson is one such character who is underrated and so often forgotten. A pioneer for female racers in Australia, she holds the record for the most starts for a female driver at nine and for the highest placed finish for a female in sixth.

It was this result in 1981 that has been under a cloud of intrigue.

Until now.

In 1981, the Great Race finished amid controversy and debate. A huge accident at the top of the mountain between Bob Morris and Christine Gibson brought the race to a screeching halt and, for the first time ever, it was called without running full distance.

On lap 121, the Ford Falcon of Dick Johnson and John French was leading, Bob Morris was in hot pursuit in second.

“I saw Bob in the rear vision mirror as we went up the top of the mountain and I intended to move across before we went over Skyline,” Gibson recalls. “Bob got a bit impatient and put his car down the inside and it hit the concrete wall, bounced off and hit me.”

There was a six-car pile up. It was carnage.

“There was so much controversy over the incident,” Gibson continues, “they really played up the fact that a woman was involved in the crash and I was wrongly blamed for the whole thing.”

The stewards conducted an inquiry calling on any photographers who might have photo evidence to come forward, but nothing was ever presented and Gibson carried the blame.

It was by pure chance that the truth was finally revealed.

“Two years after the race, my mother opened a Weetbix packet, of all things, and here was this photograph taken from behind, of my car and Bob Morris’s car going into the corner just as the accident happened in 1981,” Gibson says.

“Absolutely I felt vindicated because I knew it wasn’t my fault. I was proud of our sixth place finish in 1981 and that’s why I was quite cross about that event.

“I didn’t want people saying it happened because of a female driver, I didn’t want it to define what females were in motor racing.”