This is what Peter had to say in his own column in the Bathurst result Edition of Auto Action dated October 13 1972. In his own words he explains race strategy, the one-minute penalty, fans stopping him on the mountain and his aspirations for open wheelers. Indeed, his earliest relationship with Larry is revealed. Just what did Harry say to him when he won? Find out here. Peter Brock I thought the first few laps at Bathurst were fairly dicey as there was a fair bit of water laying around upon on top of the mountain. While the track was pretty safe, to make any passing moves was very dicey indeed.

I remember coming on to the main straight in one of the first few laps and hitting a great puddle of water, which put me fairly sideways. I pulled back on to the line and left it at that for the moment.

Really, I was a bit disappointed with my own driving and not getting in front of Allan Moffat, because generally, over the top of the mountain he was having a far more difficult time than me, so I sat behind him just waiting for him to make some sort of mistake. Eventually, he had quite a bit of a lose, in exactly the same place Colin lost it, round about the 25th or 26th lap.

Fred Gibson's "exit" from the race messed up quite a few passing attempts as the yellow flag was out for a fair time.

I didn't know Colin had gone very early on. Coming around the lap afterwards, I noticed Graeme Moore was behind me coming down the straight. So I thought Colin must have been in a bit of trouble somewhere. When I passed him the next lap, "Goldie" was sitting on the bonnet of his car waving that he was OK.

That final lap of honour with an ARDC official on board was really something else!

Actually it was a bit frightening, as I never knew what the spectators were likely to do, and it wouldn't have been very good if I'd run over on eof them at that point!

But they were all very good natured, pouring beer all over the car. And when I explained I had to get around to the start line for presentations they quickly quietened down and let me go.

It was a pity they made me cut across the behind the pits to get to the presentation because it seemed to hold things up more than necessary. The official in the car with me told me I mustn't go around Murray's and that Jack Hinxman would be manning a gate to get us in behind the pit area for security reasons.

They were trying to make sure that that there was no possibility of the car being tampered with, which I suppose was fair enough. From the promotion point of view though it was a bit of a flop.

Those final fast laps in the race seemed to have lots of people bluffed.

At about that time, five or six laps from the finish, the computer showed that French and I were on different laps to the ones we had on our lap charts. According to the official scores, with my one-minute penalty, I would have been actually 10 seconds behind him.

Harry couldn't afford to take any risks so he put out the 2 min 40 seconds board!

Anyway, I got stuck into it and managed a 39.1, a 38.5 and a 38.0 dead, with the last two laps at 41. Everyone thought I'd gone insane, but we did get back around 18 seconds.

We were wrapped that the car was still capable of this right at the end of the race, but then, I didn't exceed 6000 rpm at any time despite everyone saying I was giving it a big screw down the straight, but this wasn't so. I was backing off more than not!

We were using higher profile Dunlop's than we have used before, which kept the revs right down. Our gearing up the mountain wasn't as good as it might have been.

When I was talking with the Editor, I jokingly said that we'd be doing 2 minutes 38 seconds around the Bathurst circuit this year. I meant it! We did it!

That one-minute penalty was a bit of a shaker.

The boys had actually pulled the refuelling tube out of the petrol but the cap wouldn't go on because the lugs were bent. As soon as they started to remove the tube I got the signal to start up, but then they told me to switch off again, which I did.

Somebody produced a pair of pliers or something and bent the thing back into shape, put the cap back on and off I went. When I had discovered we'd been penalised when in fact we'd finished our refuelling and we were only replacing the petrol cap!

Harry's first words after the race were simply "Bloody good stuff, Brocky"…and that's worth a lot to any driver. He seldom says anything - but doesn't really have to, but we know!

Since the race the phone has been running hot with people wanting me to be involved with some promotion or other. Frankly, I'd rather go fishing!

More than ever I'd like to get into an open wheeler. I went over to see Larry Perkins off on his "Driver to Europe" Formula Ford trip the other day and I really envied him! Perhaps nobody is ever satisfied!

One last thing.

Everybody seems to be saying that I can go fast in the rain because of my rallycross experience. As far as I'm concerned, I don't consider myself to be a wet weather driver. In fact, anyone who likes wet weather driving has got to be off his rocker! But if it's the only way to that Castrol GTX champagne I guess it is worth it!

Australian Auto Action
October 13, 1972.