Drive to survive

1975 Hardie Ferodo 1000

Victory for John Goss and Kevin Bartlett in their McLeod Ford Falcon XA Hardtop at Bathurst in 1974 marked the rst Great Race win for a privateer entrant in six years. Goss wasn’t able to recreate the fairytale 12 months later, and yet a privateer team still got up, with Peter Brock and Brian Sampson triumphing in their Gown-Hindhaugh-entered Torana L34 – not bad for a low-budget team that had only been put together at the start of the year. Of course, Goss was far from the only one with a tale of woe from the ’75 Great Race, because barely more than half of the 62 cars to start were classi ed as nishers in the end. Such was the attrition rate that for a while Barry Seton’s under 3.0-litre class C Ford Capri V6 looked a near certainty for the podium! As it was, Don Holland’s class C-winning Mazda RX3 nished fth outright, with the Marie-Claude Beaumont/John Leffler 2-litre Alfa Romeo GTV sixth (while the other works team Alfa of long-time Supercars race director Tim Schenken ended its race upside down). As the pics show, things were rather a bit more free and easy at Bathurst back in the day, with none of today’s hoopla and bible-thick set of rules – those race officials riding in the back of the recovery ute behind the eld on the opening lap (next spread) wouldn’t stand a chance against today’s OH&S regs.