The celebration/aftermath
Anne Lee – formerly Anne McPhee – was 18 when she lapscored for her father during the 1968 Hardie-Ferodo 500. She has vivid memories of that very special day, with more recollections ooding back once AMC showed her the images displayed on this page. We paid a visit to her at home near Wyong, not far from where she grew up.
Anne – the eldest of Bruce and Alma’s two children – is understandably proud of her dad’s biggest achievement. She reveals that her mum played a bigger role in proceedings than has been previously reported – quite apart from her traditional basket of fried chicken she had on hand to feed the crew.
“Dad and Mum would drive the [race]car up and everyone else would drive up or get up there however they could. I was working as a hairdresser in Newcastle at the time and I worked on the Saturday (of race weekend) and then after work headed to Bathurst with our local bus company. It was a bus full of drunks, who had to stop regularly – it felt like every ve minutes – to ‘you know what’. So I virtually travelled overnight and arrived in time for race day with the bus dropping me at Mum and Dad’s motel just in time to hop in the car and get to the track. I was tired before the race even started!
“Dave Heywood, a local policeman here (on the Central Coast), and Barry Sergeant, who owned the local bus company, were always Dad’s lapscorers. Mum was pit manager so she wanted everything triple checked. She ran a tight ship. Mum wanted people who were pretty pedantic.
“So when officials tried to tell us Dad was on a different lap [ED: i.e. a lap down], she went to them and said, ‘No, no, no, that’s not right.’ She sorted them out, as she always did. told him he was mad.
“I’m not sure if it was in ’68 or one of the earlier years, but when officials rst noted that Barry [Mulholland] had only done one lap, an official came down to our pit and spoke to Mum, and asked her if Bruce was already back in the car? When she answered ‘Yes’, the official scratched his head and asked if Barry had done just the one lap before hopping out of the car. ‘Yes, that’s right’. To which this guy says, ‘Well, you can’t do that’. Mum asked him where in the regulations it stated the minimum number of laps required by the co-driver, highlighting that the rules simply stated that there needed to be a driver change. So the official tells Mum, ‘If he gets hairy out there, I’ll be pulling him in,’ to which Mum responds, ‘If he gets hairy out there, don’t worry, I’ll be pulling him in!’ She was a very strong woman, my Mum.”
Renowned rulebook readers, the likes of Harry Firth, Frank Gardner and Larry Perkins, would have been proud of Alma.
Anne says although the team knew they were well placed throughout the day, it took a long time for others to cotton-on to their position.
“Even though Dad had pole position they didn’t really mention him until they worked out, ‘Hmmm, he might win this...’
“Dad was surprised that he was on pole position, as that was not Dad’s way. He always had a time that he wanted to lap in. And he reckoned if he just sat on that time, lapping the track at a good speed while saving the car, then he’d win. So in practice he was just doing his own thing and ended up on pole. He just loved it.
“Dad was always very relaxed about things. The other drivers would all be in their cars about to go out on the track and Dad would be wandering around having a chat to everyone. Mum would be chasing him to get him in the car. He was very laid back and loved to have a chat.”