Bob Morris
Did Shane van Gisbergen deliberately ‘park in’ his championship rival Scott McLaughlin at the New Zealand Supercars round last year? I don’t know van Gisbergen, but I do know what it’s like to be in a championship battle like that. In that kind of situation – like it was between Peter Brock and myself in 1978 and ’79 – inevitably it becomes a psychological battle.
What happened at Adelaide in ’78 is a prime example. It was the nal round and basically a winner-take-all scenario between Brock and myself.
Halfway through the race I attempted to pass him on the outside at the end of the straight; which on re ection was possibly a questionable move. He held his line, we had a bit of a collision, I ended up off the circuit. He went on to win the championship.
Afterwards I let it be known among the mechanics – because they all talk to each other – that I was out to get Brock, and he better not cross my path, etc. I think the next race was the Sandown 400, and I’ll never forget – after the rst lap he was in front and I’m two inches from his bumper bar, and I’m looking at him in his rear vision mirror through his back window, and I could see his eyes getting bigger as we headed towards the end of the straight because he didn’t know what was going to happen!
Sometimes, though, mind games can back re. Like the well known story of Brock’s
rst time at Amaroo. He was struggling to nd pace, and between practice sessions he was talking to Colin Bond and myself. “How do you guys go so fast around here?” he said to us, and we told him, ‘you’ve got to go at over the top of the hill.’ Colin and I didn’t go at over the hill; we were just having him on.
Then in the next session Peter did go at
over the top, and was faster than us...
Brock was always good with the psychology. His strategy always was to get out in front, put in some dynamite laps and get a break. Once he was three seconds or so in front, the person behind would think, ‘Well, I’ve got no chance of catching him,’ and they’d back off a bit to look after their car. So then he’d back off, and save his tyres, and maintain the gap. With his Bridgestones being fast initially, this worked for him. But if you could keep the pressure on him, the Bridgestones didn’t have the durability, and they would start to go off.
Allan Moffat was prime example of somebody who I don’t think was as physically t as other people but used to psychologically tune himself up. Moffat would strap himself in half an hour before the car even went to the dummy grid, and he would just be sitting in there hypnotising himself or whatever it was that he did. Nobody could go near him, not even his own mechanics. If you went up and tapped him on the shoulder and made some comment, even to just say hello, it would break his concentration. So I always used to go and say something to him!
The rst time I raced against Allan was at Warwick Farm. I was in the 350 Monaro, he was in the GT-HO. I’d never met the guy. I was only about 20, but I’d been winning a few races at Oran Park. So I think they said to Moffat, ‘You should go and stitch this guy up.’ We quali ed on the same row, and with about 60 seconds to go he starts revving his engine really hard. I’m looking over at him and thinking ‘What is he doing?,’ and while I’m doing that the ag drops. He got me a beauty!
But not only that: when we got to the Western Crossing, the corner that fed onto the straight, he went straight across the dirt and gravel and he’s throwing rocks and dust back at me. Because I was young and inexperienced, I backed off as I couldn’t see anything. So he’d got onto the straight at full tilt, and I’d lifted, so by the time the dust cleared he’d got a nice gap on me. He beat me that day. That was a lesson for me.
Shortly after there was a race at Oran Park. I got out in front and he was behind me as we dipped into right hander in the Esses. There was quite a rut there where people used to drop a wheel off, and it was full of water from overnight rain. I deliberately went straight through there when he was right behind me – and threw mud all over his windscreen… I won, and afterwards a very irate Allan Moffat came up – and I still hadn’t even met the guy – and said words to the effect of ‘Kid, what do you think you’re doing?’ and I said, ‘Well, remember Warwick Farm? That was payback.’ He just turned and walked away. That’s how I met Allan Moffat.
People would try different tactics, look for some little thing to get one over their opposition – I’m sure it’s no different today.
In the A9X days we got a couple of little one-ups on the dealer team. We put spinners on the front wheels. I’d got the idea after seeing these nned wheel covers on the Porsches at Le Mans. So Ron Missen nds a baking dish the right diameter, and takes a breglass mould off that and puts some aluminium vanes inside. Once we put those on, lo and behold, next meeting Brock’s got them on his car! Whether they did anything didn’t matter; it was the psychological thing – to have something they didn’t have, or hadn’t thought of, and then have them follow what we did instead of us following their lead, which all of us had to, to an extent, because they were the factory team.