1980-1984: Outright fun
Good mate Barry Jones had become a rotary expert and built a Group C Mazda RX7 that was initially a class car but which would become an outright contender after Moffat wrangled CAMS into allowing peripheral porting and a bigger engine.
Racing together for the rst time in 1980, they were brought undone by a broken axle. Then in 1981 they were out by half distance with a failed engine apex seal. It was a shame because they had been competitive in the CRC 300 at Amaroo, nishing sixth behind Brock, Johnson, Grice, Cullen and Masterton despite a total loss of brakes (“I had to open the door and put my foot on the ground to stop in the pits!”).
There were high hopes for 1982, but Leeds suddenly wasn’t part of the plan. Alan Jones, who had retired from F1, had asked Moffat who he should race for in Australia and the answer was Barry Jones. Barry wanted to keep Geoff, but what could he do? A recent World Champion wanted the drive and sponsors were queuing up to back them. When ‘the Jones boys’ won rst time out in the CRC 300, Geoff went down to congratulate Barry, who promptly burst into tears of remorse for his mate because it was meant to be their success. Some 39 years later, Leeds still tears up telling the story.
As a gun for hire, though, Leeds’ phone soon rang. It was Ron Dickson, who was running a pair of Chevrolet Camaros. “I didn’t have a drive and was pretty down in the dumps because I’d lost my business and he asked if I’d like to drive one of the Camaros!” Peter Fitzgerald brought a sponsor to get the other seat, but Dickson knew Leeds had gone broke and didn’t ask for a contribution. It would be his rst race in a V8.
“I hadn’t been driving all year and everything seemed to happen very quickly. I came in and said to (crew chief) Bobby Stevens, ‘Mate, I reckon this thing is going to get away from me, I don’t think I can drive it.’ And he said, ‘You’ll be right, Leedsy.’ So I thought about it a bit more and sure enough it did. That was a great car to drive up at Bathurst; left-hand drive, long wheelbase, and the whole race was in the dry.”
Despite having drum rear brakes while Dickson had discs, Leeds matched him in qualifying and managed to nish the race, despite some on-track dramas. A tyre blew in the Dipper and the car rode up the fence, costing plenty of laps while the recovery truck retrieved it. Then there was a misunderstanding when lapping Gemini driver Jim Faneco on Conrod Straight, which saw the Camaro take to the grass, barely missing the bridge and somehow stopping before Murrays Corner. It was a huge moment and ‘more good luck than good
After a spell with Barry Jones in Mazda RX7s Leeds teamed up with Ron Dickson’s two-car Camaro effort for ‘82. Then came the start of a long association with Commodore privateer Terry Finnigan. management.’
“It was a good fun drive, but there’s no bad drive at Bathurst. Never had a bad drive. Just to be part of that race, to be part of the atmosphere and just to drive on that circuit, there’s no such thing as a bad drive.”
For the last two years of Group C, Leeds joined Terry Finnigan in his self-prepared VH Commodore. Geoff didn’t know Terry, but it was the start of a near decade association full of joy and heartbreak.
“Terry was a good driver and he could sort a car, but unfortunately really had a minimal budget, which meant that on a lot of occasions we had to re-use equipment, and you pay the penalty. Which was a pity because Terry lived for motor racing and Bathurst, put his heart and soul into it, worked all year on it, but like a lot of privateers we were just short on budget most years.”
In 1983 they quali ed a notable 16th but lasted just 62 laps, then in 1984 were two seconds a lap faster to qualify 14th only to retire after 48 laps. Both times the engines let them down.
1985-1991: The Group A years
For the start of the new international Group A category in 1985, Finnigan needed nancial help that Leeds was unable to provide, so Geoff did a deal with WA racer Tim Slako (thanks to being friends with Tim’s brother). Slako’s Rover ran three-piece wheels and Geoff suggested they replace all the studs, but in the rush to get to Bathurst it wasn’t done. There were no problems in practice, but in the race on a full tank the studs started breaking, which caused a series of at tyres. All the wheels were rebuilt in the pits, but many laps were lost and they nished 11 laps down in 13th.
Before returning to Bathurst in 1986, Leeds went across to Perth for the Wanneroo 300 – a rare non-Bathurst outing, in a eld that included Dick Johnson and Larry Perkins – and he and Slako combined to take a thrilling victory after a race-long battle with Mark Gibbs in an RX7.
With the Rover painted pink for Bathurst, Leeds ‘stuck it in the wall’ at McPhillamy Park in qualifying on Friday afternoon, just before Moffat did the same to Brock’s 05 Mobil Commodore.
“When I’m in the recovery truck coming back down, the two-way came on and they said, ‘After you drop Leedsy off, go back and pick up Moffat, he’s just done exactly the same thing.’”
The Rover’s chassis rails were bent and Tony Warrener’s TAFE crew xed it just in time for the race, but the harmonic balancer was loose so the car kept throwing fanbelts.
“Otherwise it was perfect, but we ran out of fanbelts, which were spread all over Mount Panorama…”
Slako ran out of time to complete a new VL Commodore he was building to replace the Rover, so Leeds rejoined Finnigan for Bathurst 1987
– for what would be a weekend of heartbreak.
Being a round of the World Touring
Car Championship, all drivers had to qualify within 110 percent of the pole time. This shoudn’t have been a problem, but the clutch blew just after Finnigan had quali ed. Leeds had to complete his lap with no clutch.
“Terry told me not to touch the clutch, whatever I did, so I tucked my left foot under the seat and did the qualifying lap with no clutch at all and made it by about two or three tenths of a second or something like that. The boys were rapt. Then Klaus Niedzwiedz went out in one of the Eggenberger Sierras and went that little bit quicker for pole, which changed the 110 percent cut-off and we missed out by three-hundredths of a second…”
To rub salt into a very open wound, the Eggenberger Sierras were of course later disquali ed for technical infringements that made them so quick. “We should have been in the race!”
At the suggestion of Barry Jones, Geoff shared the 1988 race with wealthy Bathurst grazier Tony Mulvihill, who had famously joined
Moffat and John Harvey for the previous
year’s Spa 24 Hour race in Moffat’s Rothmans VL Commodore. Mulvihill’s Jones-built VL was a good mid- eld package but a computer glitch caused a mis re that couldn’t be cured and, although they took the chequered ag, they were too far back to be classi ed.
Perth car dealer Alf Barbagallo promised to bankroll a big two-car effort by Tim Slako in 1989, but when the funding dried up Slako ran a single car for himself, Leeds and Damon Smith. Pay driver Smith did virtually the whole Saturday afternoon session to gain experience but seemingly didn’t notice it was overheating and failed to mention it to the crew. A head gasket had blown, and it wasn’t discovered until the race. The pink VL lasted only 28 laps.
Now in his mid-40s, Leeds planned to do one more Bathurst with old mate Finnigan in 1990, but an accident in the race changed his thinking. A de ating tyre suddenly let go at the Chase and Leeds smacked the wall right in front of Sandra (“It came straight at me!” she recalls). That was not the way Geoff wanted to go out, so he and Finnigan paired up again in 1991 with a new VN – supported by Princeton Holden, in which Geoff now had a share. He agreed to bring some sponsorship dollars, provided Terry bought a powerful and reliable Perkins engine.
It was ironic that Leeds should achieve his best ever outright result (eighth) in his nal Bathurst, yet was not happy with his own performance: “Terry and I had only ever been tenths of a second apart and that year we were more than that, and that’s when I realised you Left: Leeds joined forces with Perth driver Tim Slako in the early Group A years at Bathurst before returning to partner Terry Finnigan. A deflating tyre in 1990 resulted in this crash (above right) for Leeds - which happened right in front of where his wife was watching the race! Leeds made his last Bathurst start the following year, again with Finnigan, for a career-best eighth outright.
can’t do this once a year anymore. You can’t do 10 laps at Oran Park two weeks before Bathurst and expect to be on the money. I’d been able to do it up until then, but by this stage I was 45 and, as much as you hate to admit it, I didn’t feel I did a good enough job, so I decided it was time to walk away.”
But the motor racing bug never completely left him and he has remained involved in the sport – as manager at Oran Park for a while, with Aussie Race Cars and Future Racers, and now as driving standards officer for TA2.
“Motor racing gets into your system – especially Bathurst – and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Just talking about Bathurst makes the hair on my arms stand up!”