The Bathurst 1000 is a race most drivers find difficult enough to win, let alone dominate. If can be a little easier if you have exclusive rights to run an inherently faster car Nissan dominated with the GTR Skyline, but other than a car for the Bob Forbes team, no one else had access to the awesome Japanese supercars.

Brock completely dominated the 1979 race at Mount Panorama, winning by a record six laps, shattering the race record by five minutes and setting the fastest lap on his final lap. Pic Darren House

He won by a margin of six laps and cut almost five minutes off the existing race record (which he held). And just to prove how strong the car was (and no doubt his and the teams superiority), Brock set a new lap record on the very last lap of the race.

However a new challenger had emerged. The ever-improving team of Sydney Holden Dealer, Ron Hodgson and driver Bob Morris, had upped its effort for ’79 by recruiting preparation expert, Peter Malloy as team manager. Malloy was better know for his work with F5000 Chev engines, most notably with the Pat Burke owned Lola’s of Warwick Brown, as well as his building of the Ford engines that powered the Moffat cars to their famous 1-2 Bathurst victory in 1977. This was his first experience with Toranas, but his work stole a march on the factory Holden team.

Morris’ car started the ATCC season with better brakes and handling than its major rival and it wasn’t until mid season that the MHDT had caught up. By then Malloy had developed engine modifications that gave his driver a horsepower advantage. This was particularly evident when it counted – a winner-take-all showdown in the final race at Adelaide.

Things turned around for Brock at the traditional Bathurst lead-up race at Sandown. It was an event that had been owned by Brock for some time and 1979 was no different. Holden’s favourite son took pole with a 1:11.8 lap, ahead of Morris with Allan Grice in third spot after he posted an identical time to the Hodgson driver (1:12.1) Morris again had the race pace, initially battling with Brock for the lead. Soon after Grice and John Harvey also made their way past Brock.

Morris (#7) was the only car remotely close to Brock in pace in 1979 and he had a succession of dramas including this lost tyre. Pic Darren House

All four drivers led the race at some point before pitstops became a deciding factor. It was only after a sensational pitstop by Brock and a disastrous one by Morris that the MHDT driver re-took the lead. Harvey’s challenge died when his rear tyres went off while Grice was forced out with a dropped valve. Morris was wringing everything he could out of the A9X and pulling Brock in, however the strain was too much for the Holden 308 and he retired with an expired engine.

When the flag fell, Brock put in a demon lap on cold tyres and a full fuel load to lead Morris by an astounding 3.4sec first time across the line. By lap four it was 8sec, lap sixteen, 23.6sec. But a lack of speed (compared only to Brock) was the least of Morris’ problems; a gearbox oil leak was noticed during the car’s first pitstop and Dieter Quester was instructed to drive the Torana into the paddock where a new box was fitted. It effectively ended their race and although the car went out again, it eventually retired with engine troubles.

Brock and Richards took the second of their three consecutive Bathurst wins over the Toranas of Peter Janson/Larry Perkins and Ralph Radburn/John Smith, the latter a further two laps in arrears. Brock had no qualms about setting the fastest lap on his final tour of The Mountain. "Normally, I would play it cool over the last laps, but the Torana was in such fantastic condition I thought I would prove it to everyone with an extra-fast lap," said Brock. "There was no risk because the car was spot-on and I didn’t rev it too hard up the mountain. It is across the top that you can really make up time with late braking and I knew if I had any trouble I would coast down to the finish from there. I just didn’t want anyone saying I had nursed the car because it really was perfect."

Richo and Brock look decidedly concerned despite the fact that they were on there way to a record breaking race win. Pic Darren House.

A special thanks to Auto Action and Darren House for permission to reproduce this article on the Brock05 Web site.