BROCK’S BATHURST BLITZ
By Bruce Williams
Date posted: 7 October 2019
Brock’s Bathurst Blitz
SIX LAPS. It’s a victory margin unimaginable in a modern era when winning Bathurst by six seconds is regarded as a runaway and by fewer than six-tenths is not unusual. Add leading all the way and setting a record pace on the final lap, and the feat is even more inconceivable.
Today, such a smothering success would be decried as boring and condemned as a crisis for the sport. But four decades ago, Peter Brock scored the most crushing win in the history of the Bathurst 500/1000 – and was lauded for his overwhelming domination.
It is etched in Australian motorsport folklore that Brock and co-driver Jim Richards led the 1979 Bathurst 1000 from start to finish in their Marlboro Holden Dealer Team Torana A9X, winning by six laps. Just to add insult to injury, Brock broke the touring car lap record on his final, imperious tour of what was then a much more perilous Mount Panorama circuit.
It was the biggest display of domination, even exceeding Allan Moffat’s and Colin Bond’s demoralising Falcon 1-2 in 1977, but they only finished a lap ahead of the best-placed trio of Toranas.
Whether it was the greatest Bathurst victory ever is questionable. On balance and in hindsight, almost certainly not. Even Brock didn’t rate it as the best of his record nine wins, despite it cementing his status as King Of The Mountain.
But at the time, it was huge and hugely popular. Brock’s fourth and most decisive Bathurst 500/1000 triumph was memorable and unmemorable. Recalled for its dominance, the race is remembered for nothing else.
It was Brock at his best – and racing at its worst.
It was the last, greatest hurrah for the Torana A9X, perhaps the toughest looking race and road car of the golden age of the Aussie homologation special muscle cars. By the time it won Bathurst for the second time, Sheppard and Holden were already developing a Group C Commodore for 1980.
In a big shift, Brock would take over HDT and go on to greater success – and, ultimately, infamy.
Read the full feature in our Bathurst 1000 preview issue of Auto Action (1771) available right now.
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