Gooch took a 40-point lead into the fifth and final meeting and knew he at least needed to score points in three of the four races to become the first driver to clinch consecutive championships.

But Gooch did not feel the pressure on the Winton circuit steering his 1974 Holden LJ Torana to victory in the unrestricted category.

“It’s pretty good. This year was a lot harder than what it was last year. It went right down to the second last race, which was good,” Gooch said.

“We had three round wins, we had a second and a ninth.”

Gooch’s team – which included his father, Geoff, as chief mechanic – faced all sorts of vehicles in the roughly 30-team field, including Ford Falcons, Nissan Skylines and Mitsubishi Evos.

“We raced against pretty much your normal road car with a cage in it, up to ex-Supercars,” Gooch said.

“(The Torana’s) got an LSI gen-three motor out of a VZ SS Commodore… so it’s pretty well up to date. Around there you get up to about 200kmh, it’s tight and windy, but down the straight you get close to 200.

“We do all the work to the cars ourselves, dad’s our main mechanic, so he does most of the work.”

Gooch plans to run the series again next year to defend his two titles, possibly with a new VS Commodore.