Brock's first Bathurst

The ’69 Great Race was a landmark year in that it featured the Bathurst debut of not only Allan Moffat, but also his future great rival Peter Brock. It was HDT boss Harry Firth who discovered Brock and gave him his big chance – and as history shows Brock didn’t disappoint. But as Firth relates here, some work was needed to turn the bearded country boy into a factory racing driver.

Story: Steve Normoyle

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At the time when I was forming the new look Holden Dealer Team, in 1969, Peter Brock had just come off a highly successful season with that Austin A30. I needed drivers for Bathurst, and I thought this character from Diamond Creek, an unknown country boy, had the image and skill I was looking for.

I didn’t give Peter an audition drive before I took him. Didn’t need to. I’d seen enough with the A30. I taught him how to drive the Monaro. His first drive of the HDT Monaro was at Calder. I don’t remember him being particularly nervous – he just wanted to learn – but he did have trouble believing he really was in the team for Bathurst.

Harry Firth took a risk in selecting Peter Brock for the HDT drive after just a couple of seasons in a home-built Holden-powered Austin A30, but it paid off handsomely.

I loaned him a Monaro road car – ‘don’t go hooning in it!’ I told him. It was purely so he could get experience driving this particular car before we went to Bathurst. Did he go hooning in it?
Not to my knowledge.