Peter Brock --- Brock05 The Ultimate Resource ---Mr HDT's Scrapbook 4

“You cannot afford to make any mistakes in a race like this.” That’s how Peter Brock summed up his win in Sundays Hardie-Ferodo 500 at Bathurst.

And it was the story of this year’s remarkable race of changing fortunes. Alone among the top contenders, Brock had a completely trouble-free run in his perfectly prepared Holden Dealer Team Torana XU1, ending Fords two year domination of the race in the fastest and most hazardous 500 on record.

It was his first win and seventh with which the team’s chief, Harry Firth, has been associated both as a driver and team manager since the inception of the 500 in 1960. In retrospect, considering the difficult weather conditions in the early part of the race, it was a thoroughly professional performance by the team as a whole.

Brock covered the 500 miles at a record average speed of 83.75mph. His total race time of 6 hrs 1 min .53 sec was nearly eight minutes faster than Allan Moffat’s winning time last year, which in turn was 2 minutes faster than the time Moffat took to win in 1970. Reliability was a major factor in Brock’s victory.

Rain
So was slick pit work because he was stationary for less than six minutes in his two scheduled pit stops. The first, for fuel and one front tyre, took 1 min 30 sec. The second, when all four tyres were changed while the car was being refuelled, occupied only 1 min 25 sec. Spread over 500 miles, 130 laps of the 3,8 mile Mount Panorama circuit, that’s very little wasted time – and the only way to win such a race. At the finish, Brock was a lap ahead of nearest rival, John French, who lost a valuable 2 min 12 sec with a cut front tyre on his falcon GTHO on lap 14.

Doug Chivas, who filled third place in his Charger RT4, was another lap behind French after also making an unscheduled stop with suspected oil pressure which subsequently proved unnecessary. Few cars ended the race unscathed, only 38 of the 60 starters making it to the finish. Rarely has a 500 taken such a heavy toll.

There has never been a more interesting 500. The early rain saw to this, by closing the performance gap between the favoured Falcons and the Toranas and Chargers. In these conditions, it was a day for drivers rather than cars and a good deal depended upon tyres. Ford had no problems in this respect, with Goodyear providing a choice of wet, dry and all weather rubber from the vast shipment sent from the U.S. Most of the Falcons ran on intermediate tyres.

The Holden Dealer Team compromised by having the Dunlop slicks, which is would have used in the dry, hand-grooved to a special zig-zag pattern devised by Firth. These, Firth reckoned, would be suitable for both wet or dry conditions. He is not called the “old fox” for nothing. Firth had already tried a set of the hand-grooved Dunlop’s to his satisfaction during the wet practice session at last months Sandown 250 in Melbourne. And just as a precaution, he sent Colin Bond on a mixture of Dunlop front and Goodyear rear tyres. But Bond lasted less than three laps before he crashed so the experiment was to no avail.

Chivas settled for Dunlop all-weather tyres while Leo Geoghegan, fourth outright in another Charger RT4, chose wet-weather Bridgestone’s, switching to intermediates when the track dried out. Brocks twin brother over shadowed the fact that none of the other Toranas did really well, either crashing or losing time with a variety of mechanical problems.

In the final score, out of the first 10, they were first, fifth and sixth, with Don Holland and Bob Forbes quite a long way back on 125 and 124 laps respectively. French, veteran of many a 500, drove his big car masterfully from start to finish and was challenging Moffat for the lead when his blowout forced him into the pits. For Moffat, it was a case of three times unlucky.
He began promisingly enough. Leading the field for the first one and a half hours until he slid off the road to let Brock through.

Beauty
His first pit stop was a beauty – 1 min 48 sec for 35 gallons of fuel and four tyres – but Moffat muffed it all by starting his engine while his car was still being fuelled and incurred a 60 sec penalty. He made up all but 16 sec of that minute – and then repeated the same mistake on his second stop to lose another minute. From then on, nothing went right for Moffat. A front brake calliper seal blew out, resulting in two long stops and by the end of the race he had spent more than 20 minutes stationary in the pits.

He finished a distant eighth, on 122 laps, after driving the closing stages on only three brakes. The result was a major triumph for Castrol, whose oil lubricated Brock’s Torana and the other three class winning cars, French’s Falcon, Digby Cooke and Geoff Leads’ Escort twin cam and – subject to appeal – Bill Evans’ Datsun 1200.

Campaign

Brock averaged better than 10 mpg, while French’s Falcon gave 6 mpg and Chivas’ Charger – which made only one refuelling stop, at 66 laps, returned 7.5 mpg. Cooke and Leads averaged 14 mpg in their Camper-Ford entered Escort which used up only one of it’s hand grooved Goodyear’s over the 117 laps they covered.

Daily Mirror (Sydney)
Friday October 6. 1972.