Bathurst glory has eluded Albury's Brad Jones Racing for another year.
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It was heartbreak early on with Jordan Boys hitting the wall at the final turn on lap 50.
Boys was making his debut in the annual classic and had been running consistent laps prior to getting his rear wheel up on the slippery curbing, which spat him into a vicious spin and into the concrete wall on the other side of the circuit.
'It just started acting funny in the steering," a bitterly disappointed Boys said.
"It just started locking a bit and I was working through the problem when it just swapped ends on me.
In hindsight we should have come in and had it looked at."
Nick Percat and Thomas Randal in the #8 car were among the fastest on track for the first two hours and well inside the top 10.
At around the halfway mark the engine misfired and Percat had no choice but head to the garage where the electrical coil was replaced.
The problem persisted though requiring Percat to visit the garage several times, losing more than 20 laps to the leader and eventually retiring from the race.
With two of the team's four cars out of contention, Macca Jones and Jack Smith had their cars line astern in 9th and 10th and seemingly on track for good results.
However, on lap 98 Jones tried to move past his teammate into the final corner but lost control and hit Smith putting into the sand trap and he went a lap down waiting to be pulled free.
Smith went on to look to be securing his best Bathurst 1000 result in his short career, when with nine laps to go he locked the rear brakes at the bottom of Conrod straight and ended his day in the sand trap.
Jones was given a drive through penalty for his efforts in hitting Smith in the earlier incident dropping him to 16th.
He recovered to finish the highest of the BJR runners in 13th.
Albury's David Reynolds stayed out of trouble all day but didn't have the pace to trouble the leaders.
Reynolds sat just outside the top 10, which was where he was for most of the week leading up Sunday's race.
A cruel twist to the 2017 champion's fortunes saw the car drop a cylinder with 30 laps to go and he was forced to limp home in 15th place.
Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander won a war of attrition by less than a second from Cameron Waters and Will Davison.