If your achievements have made you an icon of any given sport, it's hardly going to want to let you go. No-one who witnessed even a part of the Peter Brock testimonial tour in 1997 could quite believe the Great Man would just walk away from Australian motor racing after his last race for HRT, at Bathurst that year.

Yet he maintains today that was precisely what was on his mind when his on-track career rolled to a halt:" In 1997 I had no interest in coming back and racing… since then, I've enjoyed revisiting the scene every now and then and seeing how people were going. But there were so many other things happening in my life."

So how is it that in 2002 he's fronting Team Brock in the V8 Supercar cauldron's latest stanza? "The root of this really goes back to the middle of last year. People were always saying to me' hey Brocky! When are you starting up a team?' Well this is it."

Team Brock features a threesome at the top - Melbourne businessman and V8 Supercar owner Rod Nash, is running the team, while engineer, Ron Harrop, is preparing the cars and Brock is in charge of the publicity and merchandising arm.

"Rod Nash is an old friend of mine." Brock told MRA, "and Ron Harrop was in racing the same time as me and has a great deal still to offer V8 racing on the engineering side. He always said he'd come back into it if I did, and I thought visa versa."

Nash confirms that it is not a new team. "We hope to build from where we left off last year. We had a couple of top 10 finishes (then) and would hope to end the year with a similar or better score. We've done a lot of testing at Winton and would want to have the second car as good as the first before we debut that (for James) because that would be a pre-qualifying situation. The Logistics for the naming rights are still being sorted. There is obviously a big support for the name Brock but we are about three prominent parties pulling together and Ron Harrop certainly has the runs on the board. People queuing up outside the pit at Adelaide while obviously loyal to Brock's memory and the contention he's been missed on the sidelines, is also a sign of general enthusiasm for the 'new' outfit as an addition to a healthy V8 scene as a whole."

So how does driver, Craig Baird, come into the picture? ---> up to next column

"Rod and I had firmed a deal even before Ron and Peter definitely came on," Baird told MRA. "I'm a good friend of Tony longhurst (Nash's driver in 2001), and Tony wanted to join a team that was based near home. I suppose because he felt he'd let Rod down (by going to Briggs Motor Sport) he helped me secure the berth with Team Brock."

Before 2002, of course, the rumor mill almost always had a Brock comeback on the cards after some fashion or other. A lot of it may have just been the result of wishful thinking on the part of admirers, but there was some truth to the reports, as Brock concedes. "Craig Lowndes and Ron (Harrop) and I - that was a real possibility at one point."

And this is not the first time the Team Brock moniker has officially raised its head, though the wiseacres who've seen Peter 'commandeer' cars at Bathurst in the past, or front a media conference after a hysterical victory, would aver any team Peter was in quickly became Team Brock.

"In 1976, brother Phil and I ran a team for about 12 months until we were bought out effectively by the naming sponsor, Bill Patterson - that was 26 years ago, though!"

It was after that that Brock began his glory days of six Bathurst victories in the next seven years, with the Holden Dealer Team. Such is Brock's influence still, that if anyone could front up to a season with no naming rights sponsors colours on his car, it's Brock.

"Nothing is locked in as yet … it's not as though we feel deprived with the support we are getting (foundation sponsors include Holden, Bridgestone, Mobil, NGK, Autotek, Eibach and biante). But it's the old case of 'softly, softly, catchee monkey'. Quality sponsors, long-term, take time to organize.

And you have to get the synergy right … it's more than companies having their signage on the side of the cars, there are all sorts of cross-marketing issues that come into it."

All the same, Brock Legend or not in tow, a new team trying to make a difference in V8 Supercar these days is almost on a hiding to nothing as a given. Everyone knows HRT has enormous resources in its paddock and its current domination is the category's biggest problem.

So how will this new Team Brock fare? We asked a couple of existing V8 Supercar team owners.

Gary Rogers:" Having Peter back in V8 Supercar racing can only be good for the category, but there's a big difference between being a top driver and (overseeing) a team … or building a car and making it competitive … it depends on what sort of combination it all takes."

Ross Stone of Stone brothers Racing says bluntly:"(Team Brock) means there's another bloke we have to knock off … and you can't make an impact in five minutes." But he's sure Ron Harrop (etc) is more than capable.

Brock:" It's always been a tough world out there. What HRT (as top dog) is saying is: we have our act together. This is what you have to do to get there;. You know, come and do it if you can. It's tough and unforgiving and you need time and money … you need adequate money. Motor racing is an engineering exercise within certain rules so it's also having the right people and having them work together effectively."

There are those who would say, though, that Brocky's got a little carried away with his own racing bug still biting; ' accused of having alpacas loose in the back paddock' as he himself puts it, by coming back. But he dismisses the notion this is a gamble on his past reputation.

"Not in the slightest. We're not5 amateurs walking in the off street. We know what it's going to take. We're not babes in the woods. It's subject, first and foremost obviously, to how much research and development we get done on our cars. If people combine well, and are self-assured and happy the results will follow."

And today, more than ever, as Garry Rogers puts it, being successful in V8 Supercar is: " Not a challenge … rather a job to be done (for your commercial backers). "

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Team Brock made a good start. Craig Baird was 12th in the first race at Adelaide, and with times only 1.5s seconds shy of Skaife.

"Yeah, one and a half seconds too much!" Brock jokes. "But, look, Ron and I are just not used to being with a car that's not capable of being up the front."

The team were particularly impressed with Baird's execution at Adelaide.

"We told him we didn't want him to drive the car in a way that would invite trouble - don't go for any gaps."

Peter admitted then: "What was I saying? I'd be going for everything in his shoes! But that wasn't what we wanted that weekend - Craig drove with great level of circumspection."

And if anyone thinks Team Brock is just a vehicle for Peter's son, James (who's slated for the second car when it comes on stream) to get into the premier category - they've got a shock coming.

"James is currently in the test day loop. This is a considerably better car than he's ever drive recently - some people say it's been tough for him (so far) … but it does you no harm, strengthens your character - he's earned his apprenticeship. There's a huge expectation there with the 'son of' thing, but James is ready to work through it. James has got to be his own person, there's no way he'd just be a sycophant to his old man. He speaks his own mind."

He couldn't stay away.

Many thought it inevitable that the retired Brock would return to the sportin a non-driving role

The inevitable coaching though must be part of the territory, MRA pressed.

"I'd see him coming up to me perhaps after having tried all sorts to get the car right and ask me for a viewpoint," headed. "That's how it's always worked."

James Brock had a character-building Bathurst 2001 to say the least. A big 'off' in practice after virtually zero laps, mechanical gremlins, and a blown tyre early in the race, etc.

"It was embarrassing," said Brock. "Poor kid - there he was standing in the pits thinking 'what have I got to do?' But all you can do is try again. We all have our challenges."

Two cars would conceivably speed up development on-track for Team Brock, though Brock himself is wary of the current telemetry-mad trend towards the maxim: any data is good data.
---> up to next column

"The level of meaningful info is probably preferable to strive at. If you look at HRT, they have about five cars running around to pool data from. But you have to have both your drivers settling to their individual specs - as long they're both happy and the car is proceeding in a certain healthy direction is the key."

Of the V8Supercar championship itself Brock, typically, has a few suggestions to make: "I'd like to see Lakeside (Old) in there somewhere. There's a good mix of street track and road circuit, but hopefully they'll make Canberra a little more driver-friendly."

Peter is confident the lack of previous experience at some tracks won't hold Baird back significantly: "Nashy was use to dealing with Tony Longhurst's (vast) know-how. But at Albert Park (Craig) sorted himself out very quickly - and I always reckoned if I didn't know my way around a place after six laps I shouldn't be there."

Left: Team Brock is not a new name, but a reincarnation of what was Brock's first foray as a touring car team owner. The year is 1976 and Brock is seen here at Bathurst - running 5 rather than 05, due to a CAMS ban at the time on the use of numbers less than the value of one.
Ray Berghouse/Chevron
Right: Team Brock today - Daniel Kalisz

"I've never minded saying I struggled to come to terms with the Falcon v8 at Pirtek (in 2000)," says Baird. " I was labeled aggressive after my time in open-wheelers and 2-Litre tourers, but I actually preferred being able to finesse a car - and with V8's you can't do that … you're never going to fine-tune the ultimate setup with tem … instead of trying to make the car go faster I should have been making myself push it harder."

It's a lesson Craig hasn't had to re-learn at Team Brock.

"Although people go on about HRT having the best bits, you still have to do the best you can with what you've got. To have four great brains in my corner (Frank Adamson, his engineer, has also worked in Europe) it's a wealth of experience to be able to call on."

Brock can point to plenty of examples where in motor racing can be usurped by inspiration.

"People say you have to do things a certain way and nothing else will work - but I don't think Craig Lowndes ever heard of that. A team should look towards a new track, not with trepidation, but keenness and curiosity - let's get out there and belt the car around a bit even - see what happens. I remember Marcus Ambrose turning up for the Grand Prix V8 races last year as a rookie and he set pole position."
---> up to next column

People did immediately say: 'special rubber', MRA reminded Peter.

"The (status quo) always try to qualify things with a tangible explanation. They don't always see that there's a special magic sometimes happens - one of the real attractions of motor-racing."

Craig Baird says he doesn't know Brock that well: "mainly from a time in NZ where the touring car scene was 'more social'" But, he's unselfconscious when he describes Brock as: 'probably the complete human being'.

Such salutations have become clichι folklore - but people from many walks of life outside motor racing feel that too - and can't explain it in any way.

But the currency of hope, as PB expresses it, has always been the engine behind his inveterate 'red-hot go'. Motor racing made him a household legend, but there's obviously an appetite for still-unfinished business.

It's a good bet that one enduring image that will be repeated will be the sight of Brock signing autographs outside the team transporter as darkness descends at the end of a V8 Supercar Championship Series weekend.

MRA

Did Peter Brock really feel that he had to come back? Did he miss the racing that much?

"I've never enjoyed a greater level of public support than I do right now, frankly. I've had a great experience (away from the track). It's been all the greater because it wasn't just motor racing. I've done an enormous amount of travel - there's been motor industry related things, promotions for books and apparel and so on, the Peter Brock foundation - and just getting to a race meeting is challenging. I'm the team's public face, but there's nothing more I can do beyond that. At least if the guys come to me for a comment about the car doing this or that, trouble with a certain corner or so on, it's not the case of them thinking: oh, but you don't know what it's like."

But looking beyond V8 Supercars, MRA asked Brock what he thought were the big challenges facing motor racing now?

"We have to see and develop more ways to put something back into the community."

Brock believes there should be far more interaction with the general public "People will be seeing this team do some different things … a very different website - there'll be the racing and the profiles and fan/driver interaction … there'll also be interface with the performance driving academy - showing people, through experiences on the track, how they can get a better job done on the road."

That's a genuine way Peter believes motor racing can contribute to the community's general benefit. Community benefit has always been the essential purpose of the Peter Brock Foundation he started before the end of his track career, helping to raise money and public visibility for the kids' charities and disadvantaged children. To Peter," more business leaders could benefit from rubbing shoulders with challenged youth."

It may be as simple as two people who otherwise might never have met, total opposites even, coming together in a friendly atmosphere through a common link - motor racing. Or about demystifying the realities of people from different boxes in life.

'Motor racing offers a great opportunity to facilitate this' according to Peter's vision

"It has a responsibility really to put something back. I meet people outback at rallies and so on, and they're always coming up to me saying 'I remember when you had that big fight at Bathurst with Moffat' and you're just staggered! They know it all! We shouldn't ever take for granted that willingness to be aware."