Broc Feeney was two years old when Jamie Whincup won his first Bathurst 1000.
Seventeen years later, Feeney's co-driver at Mount Panorama will be Whincup, his boss at Triple Eight.
The similarities between the young bull and the Supercars legend, the most successful driver in Australian touring car championship history, are hard to ignore.
Roland Dane, Triple Eight's former boss, said it himself after Feeney broke through for an emotional win at the Adelaide 500 last December.
At the end of Feeney's rookie Supercars season in 2022, the 20-year-old tamed the streets of the South Australian capital to claim the first victory of his career.
"In 2006 Jamie was winning his first race (in Adelaide) on the Sunday in a Triple Eight car, and with Todd Kelly chasing him down, and kept cool under pressure for the last 30-odd laps," Dane exclaimed after Feeney's first win.
"(Feeney's victory) is so reminiscent of that, and that was the birth of a champion there (with Whincup), and Broc replicated that."
Six months after Whincup's maiden Supercars win, he stamped his mark as a future great by becoming king of the mountain - the first of three-straight Bathurst 1000 victories with the incomparable Craig Lowndes.
In the years since, Whincup has become a motorsport immortal, winning 125 Supercars races and claiming a record seven championships before retiring as a full-time driver at the end of the 2021 season.
Stepping up to fill Whincup's seat at Red Bull Ampol was Feeney, then aged only 19.
Confident, calm and calculated in his media appearances, Feeney, like any young driver, has had to learn on the job and cop some hits to the ego.
Despite being the full-time driver out of the pair, Feeney was subbed out of Bathurst qualifying last year as Whincup, the wily veteran, handled the car instead in the wet conditions.
But the difference in Feeney's skill and application 12 months on is vast.
The pair are coming off a memorable triumph at the Sandown 500 last month when Feeney became the youngest-ever winner of the famed event.
Whincup trusted his pupil to steer their Chevrolet Camaro home in the face of fierce pressure from Erebus stars Will Brown and Brodie Kostecki as the 40-year-old celebrated his first race since Sydney in 2021 from the garage.
"That was as tough as it gets with all three cars breathing down his (Feeney's) neck and it was a four-way battle at the end," Whincup said.
"To keep your nerve in such a big event like the Sandown 500 is very difficult."
Whincup and Feeney are aiming to become the first pair to win Sandown and Bathurst in the same year since 2007, when Whincup and Lowndes achieved the feat.
But for all of Whincup's accolades and four wins at Bathurst, he also endured his fair share of heartbreak on the mountain.
He last won the great race in 2012, and was famously overtaken by Chaz Mostert on the last lap in 2014 when his Commodore ran out of fuel entering Conrod Straight.
"It has been a while between drinks, over 10 years now, so that doesn't sit well with me," Whincup said.
Feeney has developed a reputation in the paddock as "Mr Sunday", something the Gold Coast local has been happy to lean into.
All of Feeney's six career wins have fallen on a Sunday, but there is no bigger race than the Bathurst 1000.
As Red Bull Ampol star, and three-time series champion, Shane van Gisbergen prepares to move to NASCAR next year, a Feeney victory at Bathurst would be the perfect moment for Supercars to crown and promote the new face of the sport.
