Bill Brown's claim to fame

Bill Brown was a very capable racing driver but he's best known for his spectacular rollovers in the Great Race at Bathurst. His 1971 crash in a Falcon GTHO Phase III is one of the race's most famous shunts.

Story: James Cockington

It was 1971 and lap 43 of the Great Race when Bill Brown, a newsagent from the Sydney suburb of Top Ryde, lost control of his yellow Phase III GT-HO at the top of the mountain.

The right front tyre had popped.

“I pointed the car into the corner but it just went straight ahead,” he recalled.

“You are doing 100 mph there and it was all over in a flash and I thought, ‘Christ!’”

The car rolled three-times along the top of the McPhillamy Park fence (wooden in those days) which effectively snapped the Falcon in half. The roof was crushed flat. What makes this crash so famous was that the incident was captured live by the television cameras. And Bill Brown’s mum happened to be at home watching.

“My mother had collapsed while watching the race, so sure was she that I had to be dead.”

Fortunately, Brown was very much alive. He was saved from serious injury when his seat broke and he ended up jammed under the dashboard. His only injuries were some scratches and a black eye.

It wasn't his first rollover at Bathurst in the Great Race - and nor was it his last. In 1969 Brown famously inverted his Falcon GTHO at Skyline in the multi-car pileup that these days would have prompted officials to immediately red flag the race.

But the very next year after his 1971 wipeout at McPhillamy, Brown exited the Hardie-Ferodo 500 by rolling his Torana XU-1 - just up the road from where he'd crashed the Phase III.

BIG RICK ROLLS

There must be something about those yellow V8 Falcons and wooden fences. In April 1972 Rick Hunter had his own monumental moment during the running of the Craven Filter National Production Car championship at the Sydney Showground speedway. As Dave Booth saw it, “and he went in spectacular old fashion when he glanced the boards entering the pit turn, then – when it appeared he was out of trouble – the Falcon again touched the fence and, with Rick’s hefty size tens planted to the floor, climbed the wall and shot through the air in a spectacular roll.” Spectacular enough to make the cover of Speedway Racing News magazine.