Brock’s first Bathurst
The ’69 Great Race was a landmark year in that it featured the Mount Panorama debut of not only Allan Moffat, but also his future great rival Peter Brock. It was HDT boss Harry Firth who discovered Brock and gave him his big chance – and as history shows Brock didn’t disappoint. But as Harry Firth relates, some work was required to transform the bearded country boy into a factory racing driver.
At the time when I was forming the new look Holden Dealer Team, in 1969, Peter Brock had just come off a highly successful season with that Austin A30. I needed drivers for Bathurst, and I thought this character from Diamond Creek, an unknown country boy, had the image and skill I was looking for.
He wasn’t the only driver I had my eye on at the time. One was Barry Arentz. He had driven in the 70,000 mile Ford test, and also in a number of economy runs and rallies. He was very good. But he had a business, a car dealership in far northern New South Wales, and he wasn’t prepared to leave that to join me.
I tried Henk Woelders. He worked for Bill Patterson and used to drive Patterson’s Formula 2 car. I took him to Bathurst and I tried, but you couldn’t teach him how to drive touring cars. So I sent him on his way.
I didn’t give Peter an audition drive before I took him. Didn’t need to. I’d seen enough with the A30. I taught him how to drive the Monaro. His
rst drive of the HDT Monaro was at Calder. I don’t remember him being particularly nervous – he just wanted to learn – but he did have trouble believing he really was in the team for Bathurst.
I loaned him a Monaro road car – ‘don’t go hooning in it!’ I told him. It was purely so he could get experience driving this particular car before we went to Bathurst. Did he go hooning in it? Not to my knowledge. I think
at that time I think he would have been too shit scared to.
Peter excelled in this new scene and ran a very creditable third place in the Bathurst 500 that year with Des West. The media, who had criticised my choice of Brock and also of Colin Bond, went from piffle to praise.
But Brock took some time to adapt to the new methods and at rst found it hard to do things my way – especially after having been so independent with A30 – so he had a hard apprenticeship.
Straight after Bathurst, I gave him a drive at Oran Park. He stuffed it up. Crashed the car – which he shouldn’t have done. It was his fault. After that he came down to earth a bit.
Then I put Bobby Morris in the car, and he did very well. But they were as different as chalk and cheese. Bobby had the same sort of tuition as
- Firth on Brock
Peter had, but in a much more condensed form. He was not as good a pupil, because he had a college education, amongst other things.
He’d also been driving a bit longer than Peter, and he had his dad there telling him what to do all the time.
Now Peter’s dad, I found out at a couple of races, was giving his own pit signals to Peter down around one of the corners. Without my knowledge. So I xed that up.
That was just his dad thinking he was still part of the deal – but he wasn’t. I said, ‘Peter, you work for me. Your dad doesn’t. Or the rest of your family. Now, if I see them around the pits one more time I will ban them.’
It was the same with the double decker bus, the Holden hospitality bus. They’d sit in the front row. I’d say, ‘Hey, your seat is down there’. And of course they’d complain to Peter. So I’d say to Peter, ‘General Motors paid for the bus. Their managing director is responsible for it, it’s their deal, they paid for it, so they sit in the front seats – not your family. Your dad is invited by myself, as a courtesy, but he sits down the back’. I told him if there was any more interference like this that I would get very
“Straight after Bathurst, I gave him a drive at Oran Park. He stuffed it up. Crashed the car – which he shouldn’t have done. It was his fault. After that he came down to earth a bit.”
upset, and he understood.
When I rst met Brock he was a country yokel who had visions of the big time, but didn’t know how to go about it, and was very happy to be told how. He knew he had talent, that was obvious to anyone, and he had charisma.
I had to teach him things. Things like a clean tee-shirt and jeans is not being well dressed, that a hamburger is not a proper meal.
So I said, ‘You’ll go down to the GM-H ad agency, George Patterson’s, and see Peter Lewis-Williams and he’ll put you with someone, and they’re going to spend three weeks with you telling you every mortal thing you should know about the social side, about public speaking and all that sort of stuff. I haven’t got time to do it, it’s their job, so make the most of it.’
I sat him down and said, ‘Peter, this is the only way you’re going to get on. If you are prepared to do exactly what I tell you, how I tell you, and live like I tell you, with some guidance, you’ll get somewhere. If you don’t, you’ll just be one of the mob.’
I found him a pad near the garage. He acquired a dog – but I went to a party there and promptly set down a set of house rules – again he understood when the “big picture/career” was pointed out.
Levi-Strauss were sponsors of HDT, so Peter would be wearing the latest gear. He was no longer the scruffy type; the beard went and the long hair trend took its place – he was now going to dealerships and supermarkets.
I really put it to him on the effects of booze and other drug abuse – and threw one of the offenders out of the team as an example that all understood. When part of the HDT, you did it my way.
He did not like rallycross – but when it was pointed out that it gave him the most TV exposure and was helping build his reputation in a big way, he quickly understood.
We go to another scenario. One weekend we were racing in Tasmania. I said to Peter, ‘don’t worry about the morning practice session, you don’t need it, and qualifying is in the afternoon.’
I tell him, ’We’re going to an institution. Now, it won’t be nice, because we are going to a place for deformed and idiot people. Now, no one gives these people the time of day, but I want you to go round there, no matter what you’re feeling, with a smile on your face, and talk to them.’
So we go there and he’s talking to them all, as instructed, but he didn’t enjoy doing it. He said, ‘What are we here for?’ And I said, ‘Peter, look around, what do you see? You see that TV camera there? This will be shown on the seven o’clock news on the ABC, which is publicity money can’t buy.’ He understood.
But it wasn’t just the publicity. I said to him, ‘You have to ignore what people look like and where they’ve come from, and just treat them the same. Don’t ever get the idea that you’re better than anyone else or that you don’t need to talk to other people. Never forget your grass-roots – these are the people who buy the cars, pay to get in the gate and cheer you at the race meetings.’
I hammered this into him all the time – never forget the fans and never think you’re too good for them. You could see the bene ts of that later in things like the .05 driving programme.
I would also take him to supermarkets at lunch time, sit him down and talk to people. People would come up – ‘Oh, that’s that racing driver’ – and they would crowd around and Peter came to really enjoy just talking to people.
He did enjoy it; he liked talking to the average person. He would be out there signing autographs for fans long after everything was
nished. He’d still be out there while the other drivers would already be in their hospitality suites getting pissed – because that sort of thing, talking to the fans, that was beneath them.