Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge the outstanding contribution to motor sport made by Melbourne racing driver Peter Brock, who died tragically in a motor racing accident in Perth on 8 September 2006. Peter Brock’s family association with motor racing dates back to the turn of the century. His great-great-uncle Henry James was the founder of the RACV and organised Australia’s first motor sport event, the 1905 Sydney to Melbourne reliability trial.

Peter made his racetrack debut in a self-modified Holden-powered Austin A30 sport sedan. I can vividly recall watching him compete at the Calder Raceway in the late 1960s. Despite the small car having the equivalent aerodynamics of a block of flats, he was to go on and notch up around 100 race wins, including the Australian Sports Sedan Championship. In 1969, the manager of the newly formed Holden Dealer Team, Harry Firth, offered Peter Brock his first drive at Bathurst, in a Monaro GTS350, and he recorded an outstanding third place outright in his first attempt.

The Bathurst 1000 is the motor race that most people now associate with the name Peter Brock—not surprisingly, as he won the event an unprecedented nine times. The race was originally described as an endurance event of 1,000 kilometres, but today the race is probably better described as a 1,000 kilometre sprint. The race had its origins at the Phillip Island circuit in 1960, when it was known as the Armstrong 500. Bendigo resident Frank Coad and co-driver John Roxburgh won that inaugural event in a Vauxhall Cresta. In fact, Frank Coad has built a replica of this vehicle and runs it in club events in and around Bendigo, as well as being the proud owner of an Ariel Square Four motorcycle he rides on Bendigo Historic Motorcycle Club events.

The event was relocated to the Bathurst circuit in 1963 and is now regarded as one of the premier touring car events worldwide. The race that Peter Brock dominated has changed substantially over the years. Throughout the sixties and seventies, the cars were production models from a variety of makes that were only slightly modified for competition and were virtually the same as people could buy off the showroom floor. I believe it was this factor that appealed so much to the person on the street, who could watch the race on Sunday and then go and buy a similar vehicle from dealers all around Australia on Monday.

The limited modifications were mostly because of safety concerns and resulted in roll cages being fitted as well as the bodies and chassis being rewelded, the engines and drive trains being balanced and blueprinted and some other minor alterations. It was often said that the 500 miles around the Bathurst circuit equated to 100,000 miles of ordinary motoring, so the race provided an ideal test capability for the manufacturers to evaluate their vehicles and test components, making the cars that we drive today more efficient and far safer. In fact, motor racing has always provided valuable information throughout its history to manufacturers all over the globe, and many of the modifications derived from motorsport have continued to influence the design of many of the vehicles we drive today.

It was this type of racing that Peter Brock was so successful at for decades. The Bathurst race is now dominated by the Holden and Ford companies in the V8 supercar category. While the cars have similar bodies to the normal Holdens and Fords we buy off the showroom floor, the mechanical components are designed and built specifically for competition and bear no resemblance whatsoever to the components of the vehicles we drive today. In some respects I think that is a great shame. It detracts substantially from the spirit in which the race was first designed. I can understand the need for change, particularly for safety reasons, as well as the need to retain the race’s status as one of the premier touring car races—if not the premier touring car race—in the world. It has attracted highly competitive cars and teams from England, Europe and other parts of the world. The race is now virtually limited to highly modified Holdens and Fords but enjoys international status approaching levels similar to those of the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race in France for sports and sports prototype cars which are designed and built by the big European and American manufacturers.

Bathurst became synonymous with the theory that what wins on Sunday sells on Monday. Recognising this impact on the market, Australian manufacturers began designing and building specialist vehicles specifically for this race, the only requirement in those days being that 500 of a particular vehicle had to be registered for road use within Australia to qualify. This development gave us the Monaro GTS, the GT Falcons and, of course, the Torana XU1 in which Peter Brock won his first Bathurst 1000 victory. Even Chrysler made a valiant effort to enter the competition with its RTE38 Chargers. I had the misfortune of owning one of those machines for some years. You used to be able to tell how fast you were going by the way the fuel gauge declined, but it was a lot of fun. There was, understandably, considerable opposition to the development of these vehicles because of the obvious dangers when they eventually found their way on to the second-hand vehicle markets and within the financial resources of young and inexperienced drivers. However, this problem seems to have resolved itself because of the current extraordinarily high value that these cars can bring in today’s market. For example, a genuine example in good condition of a Ford Falcon GTHO Phase 3 can fetch in excess of $100,000.

In 1980 Brock established a special vehicles unit to modify base-model Holdens. This was the start of a very successful partnership with General Motors Holden which included the famous ‘Brock Special’ Holden. In 1997 Peter Brock retired from full-time V8 supercar racing after an outstanding career. On the motor racing circuit he was known as Peter Perfect. On his retirement, Peter Brock was recognised as one of Australia’s sporting greats and as an internationally recognised motor racing hero. The UK Motor Sport magazine rated Peter Brock in the top 20 most exciting drivers of all time, a list which included the likes of Senna, Schumacher, Fangio and Nuvolari. That in itself was an outstanding achievement on any assessment. In another authoritative UK publication he was recently voted the second greatest touring car driver of all time.

Peter Brock continued to pursue his interests in one-off events of a charitable nature and some historic and Targa style tarmac racing and rallying, as well as tirelessly contributing to the nation’s road safety campaign. He remained an active ambassador for his many loyal sponsors who had supported him throughout his motor racing career. In 1998 he accepted an invitation to join the board of the Australian Grand Prix, which was responsible for both the Australian Grand Prix and the Australian Moto Grand Prix.

Peter Brock’s motivational and speaking skills were in great demand. He was regularly called upon to address meetings, conventions and conferences for a diverse range of organisations in the business, education, sporting, government and charity areas. He was a tireless campaigner for road safety, especially in the drink-driving area, as demonstrated by the innovative measure of adopting the number 05 as his regular competition number.

Peter Brock died tragically in an accident during the Targa West Rally, and this resulted in some speculation about the suitability and construction of the vehicle that he was driving at the time—and, of course, there is a coroner’s inquiry currently under way. The vehicle was purpose built for competition, based on reproducing the specifications of an American designed 1969 Shelby Coupe. Media reports indicate that the vehicle more than met the strict construction requirements under the regulations governing this type of competition. The impact was simply so severe that the safety features built into the design were not able to withstand the force of the impact—with the obvious tragic result.

There was much more to Peter Brock than a champion racing driver, including his establishment of the Peter Brock Foundation, which has provided guidance and assistance to disadvantaged young people, assisting them to reach their full potential, his tireless work and advocacy for road safety, and his passionate defence of animal rights—a quality that I very much admired and appreciated. He and his family also successfully bred the delightful border collie dogs. No doubt Australian motorsport has lost a great champion but, perhaps more significantly, the nation has lost a great Australian. On behalf of the people of Bendigo and central Victoria, I extend our deepest sympathy to his family and friends.

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