Australian racing legend Peter Brock has announced his retirement, after three decades behind the wheel. Peter Clark looks at Brock's career, and what the future holds for Peter Perfect.

The King of the Mountain is abdicating. At the age of 52, Australian motor racing legend Peter Brock has announced that he will hang up his helmet at the end of this season. In fact, Brock's 30 year driving career should officially end on lap 161 of the Australian 1000 Classic at Bathurst on October 19.
Brock's career in touring cars is unparalleled. He has won nine Bathurst 1000's, nine Sandown 500's, captured three Australian Touring Car Championships, and has a record number of ATCC starts, pole positions and wins.
His Holden engined Austin A30 chalked up 100 victories before he came to the notice of Harry Firth, manager of the newly formed Holden Dealer Team, and was offered a drive at Bathurst in 1969. Such times clearly still hold fond memories. At his retirement press conference, Brock nominated the first race he finished in A30 together with his breakthrough win at Bathurst in 1972 as major career highlights.

Thoughout his career, Brock established a long term rivalry with hard charging Allan Moffat, and reckons the Ford driver is the man he has most admired "in terms of longevity and giving me sheer tough times" Their rivalry went back to Brock's initial Bathurst victory - the race then held of 500 miles - in 1972, "I drove it solo, it was raining and I was in a car with lightly grooved slick tyres", recalled Brock recently. I had this tremendous tussle with Allan Moffat and it went on for an hour and a half, and finally I was hassling him at the top the mountain. As we went through Reid Park, he was looking in his rear view mirror at me and I remember to this day, seeing the whites of his eyes looking at me as I was driving down the inside. The tail of his Falcon just slid wide in the excess moisture, which tends to collect on the outside of corner, and it spun home like a top and I was through".

 

RACING RIVALS Moffat and Brock are friends these days, but there was no place for that on the track when they were going head to head in their heyday. Moffat retired at 50 with four Bathurst wins under his belt, but he still remember the day he zoomed past Brock on the Conrod Straight after Peter has miscued and run his car out of petrol. "I couldn't help myself," sad Moffat at Phillip Island when asked to comment of Brock's retirement, "I had to look over and smile at him I drove by." Moffat went on to drive with Brock and blames himself for the pair for not winning at Bathurst in 1986. Roaring into pit lane, he forgot about the speed bumps and shattered the car's oil filter. Brock's reaction? "Oh he was quite gentlemanly," Moffat recalled.

Brock has mounted several overseas campaigns, driving BMW's and Porsches at Le Mans, as well as a 1986 attack on the European Touring Car Championship and the Spa 24 Hours in a VL Commodore with Moffat. Despite these forays Peter has always called Australia home. "I've never, ever been interested in an career overseas," he stressed. "For me the pinnacle was always Bathurst or the business opportunities that existed with Holden Special Vehicles," Brock's close following of his beloved Collingwood Football Club - a strange affliction affecting Victorians who worship Australian Rules Football as some religion - probably also ensured that his heart was always in his home town of Melbourne.
The present Australian 5-litre V8 touring car class is under threat from the increasing popularity of the 2-litre international category, but Brock believes that, properly managed, the V8's can survive. He expects to fulfil a future role with the Holden Racing Team (HRT) for whom he presently drives. Peter will train and advise Holden's Young Lions, a scheme introduced recently to guide young racing drivers through the system. "Australia is not short of young talent, it's just a matter of allowing them to display their talent at the highest level," he says.

TALENT SPOTTER
"There are two or three young kids, whether they get into my seat remains to be seen, but certainly they'll be in an HRT car at Bathurst. Todd Kelly is a really good young kid, he can really go. Stephen White is an extremely accomplished young driver, Jason Bargwanna and, of course, Mark Noske. As far as I'm concerned, if I can help these kids come through and make the transition into the highest levels in Australia and prepare them for their future, that will be a pretty good thing."
A great deal of Brock's future will, though, be outside motor sport. He's always had plenty to keep him interested apart from motor racing - particularly his farm, where he is never happier than when planting out orchards or tending to his animals. Peter also enjoys painting and car design, but will most likely find precious little time to enjoy such pastimes - as he seems likely to remain very much in the public eye.
"I have an enormous number of new challenges and new directions in my life. There's an old saying - as one door opens, another one shuts. With me, at the moment, I have a lot of opportunities in the world of television and the media, driver training, a lot of road safety work and also public speaking. I enjoy very much getting out there and mixing with the public and trying to put something back in the community which has supported me so well over the years. Other retired drivers has found their way into team management, notably Fred Gibson who now runs Gibson Motorsport in the V8 Supercar Series, but this is one option Peter Brock is apparently not considering. He ran his own team for 12 years and has no interest in doing it again. A consultant role to existing teams, together with all his other interests, hold a far greater appeal.
"Motor racing has been very good to me," says Brock. "I've been around the world and the sport has opened a lot of doors for me inside and outside of motor racing. I've been able to meet a lot of people around the country and people from various sporting activities. It's allowed me to take advantage of many many opportunities that have come my way - and I've never been one to turn down an opportunity. I will continue to do a lot of things with my good friends at Mobil, General Motors and Bridgestone, and I look forward to that opportunity."

NO WORRIES MATE
Brock leaves full time motor sport with no regrets - he's not even bothered by the lack of the elusive 10th Bathurst win. "I know most of Australia emits a collective groan when I don't win Bathurst for a 10th time, but the reality is you'd have to be pretty selfish type not to be satisfied with nine! Sometimes I'm reminded of what I've achieved with career wins and different races and different activities I've been involved in such as rally, rally cross and all those things. No, I'm inclined to think it's been fantastic for me. I've really done more with my life than I ever could have imagined."

The fact is, you will find few people around the Australian motor sport scene - drivers, officials, media, or spectators - with a bad word for Brock. Criticizing him is akin to blasphemy in Australian motor racing. He has always been regarded as a clean and fair competitor. The positive outlook Brock projects is certainly no front, what you see is what you get from a driver who has won more than he has lost. but who has never forgotten that winning isn't everything.

Brock summed up his ethos in simple terms at his media conference. "You can be fair, and you can be very fast, and you can be very professional. There is no need to stop outside those levels of sporting standards. I've always felt that I've achieved everything I set out to do." The article and photographs on this page are copyrighted  to  Peter ClarkMedia Services and may not be copied or used in any form with-out the expressed permission of the owner.