1971: Torana time
Digby Cooke had gone on to bigger things with a Holden Monaro and Torana XU-1 backed by Fair Deal Motors, nishing second in the 1970 Rothmans 250 Production Classic at Surfers Paradise alongside guest driver Peter Brock, splitting the works Falcon GT-HOs of Moffat and French.
He and Leeds had become not only close ontrack rivals but great mates, so Geoff was thrilled when Digby suggested they team up for 1971 in the yellow Torana. Unfortunately, Fair Deal decided to quit racing, but they were happy for Cooke to keep the XU-1. Now they just needed the money to run it.
“Sandra worked at CIG, so she told me who the advertising manager was, and we got some sponsorship from them. It wasn’t much, about $250 a race meeting, and we changed it from yellow to the blue CIG colours.
“Just before Bathurst, though, Holden brought out the 202 (LJ XU-1), which were as scarce as hen’s teeth. I had no money and Digby didn’t want to put his hand in his pocket for too much, but said he’d pay for half of it if I found someone to pay for the other half. So we went to CIG and they said they’d cover it.
“The only one left in Australia was a purple one up here at Zupps in Mt Gravatt, so we sent up a guy named Gary Henderson to collect it. But driving it back someone coming the other way ran wide on a corner and hit him sort of three-quarters head-on, which made it undriveable. Panic stations! We got it back to Sydney, and fortunately Gary was a panel beater and his boss loved motor sport, so he repaired the car. Everything was going beautifully at Bathurst until it put a leg out of bed!”
With only 10 laps remaining, they sat in the pits until the last lap, then Digby staggered around with a hole in the side of the block where the conrod had exited, pumping out oil and smoke to be classi ed 23rd (the same as they had quali ed, fth-fastest of 11 XU-1s in the race).
But there was a postscript: “The following week we went to the movies with Skello (Bob Skelton) and his wife and Billy Brown and Sue Ransom. They put up Movietone News and here’s the CIG Gases Torana with all this smoke coming out of it! And they’re talking about it needing another gas… But CIG were happy because in those days any publicity was good publicity!”
The CIG Gases LJ Torana XU-1 was then sold to Alan East for hillclimbs. In turn was bought by one of East’s employees, who still owns the car and allowed Digby to drive it again at the 2011 Muscle Cars Masters meeting at Eastern Creek.