Civil war

There may not have been much Ford opposition but 1979 was still one of the most hotly contested ATCC title fights ever. It was a fiercely fought and sometimes bitter civil war between two Holden camps: Peter Brock and the factory Holden Dealer Team vs Bob Morris and the Ron Hodgson Motors squad.

Story: Steve Normoyle

This article featured in

JOIN NOW!

Winning the ATCC is never easy. But in some years it’s been particularly hard-won.

Take James Courtney’s sole championship win, in 2010, for instance. Courtney was lead driver for a Dick Johnson Racing outfit that was cash-strapped and riven by internal conflict - the team was imploding and literally fighting to survive at the very same time they were trying to win the championship at the final round. The opposition was formidable: Jamie Whincup and Triple Eight – at the time was the dominant force in V8 Supercars, and the factory Ford team which supplied DJR with its racecars. Only the very brave would have bet on Courtney and DJR that year.

Two decades before that, Jim Richards pulled off a title win in 1990 win that no one had seen coming at the start of the season. It was mostly achieved in the HR31 Nissan Skyline, a difficult-to-drive and generally unloved turbo straight-six which no one expected would be able to get on top of a battalion of Ford Sierra RS500s. It’s true that Richards sealed the title with what was the first race win for the new all-wheel drive Nissan GT-R R32, but it was Richo’s deft touch at turning the HR31 sow’s ear into a silk purse that delivered the silverware.