Vale: Phil Brock

Being the younger brother of someone as illustrious and successful as Peter Brock was both a blessing and a curse for Phil Brock.

It opened doors but it also invited comparisons. On one occasion when he’d finished second to Peter Brock in a race, Phil lamented the derogatory commentary that he was not as good as his older brother by saying that maybe he wasn’t as good as Peter Brock, but then no one else was either.

Phil’s first race was in a FC Holden at Sandown. He also competed in rallycross around this time, perhaps most famously in what is surely one of world motorsport’s oddest vehicles: Diamond Valley Speed Shop’s delivery Holden EJ panel van. Around this time, he found employment as a mechanic for Harry Firth’s Holden Dealer Team, and even competed in rallycross events in the HDT’s supercharged Torana XU-1 ‘Beast’. That may have been Phil’s only drive for the original incarnation of the HDT where his brother started as lead driver alongside Colin Bond; not long after that, Firth sacked Phil due to, according to Firth, disciplinary reasons.

He departed the HDT fold to do his own thing, in Torana XU-1 Sports Sedans and then a Series Production Valiant Charger and, for a different team, a Group C version in 1973. A year later he drove Chadstone Chrysler’s rallycross Charger. With mid-mounted 340 V8 power the Charger was a serious rallycross weapon and might have enjoyed sustained success had rallycross not shut down at the end of that year.

Phil Brock reunited in racing with his brother during Peter’s privateer years in the 1970s. Together they were third and fourth at Bathurst in 1976 and ’77 respectively. Then in 1983 came the infamous driver swap that saw Peter Brock and Larry Perkins replace Phil at the wheel of the #25 HDT Commodore (which Phil was to have shared with John Harvey) mid race after the #05 Commodore failed. It went on to win – without one of its originally intended drivers. Phil Brock remained bitter about the outcome of the ’83 race for many years.

This was essentially Phil Brock’s last stand at the top levels of the sport. He continued racing in production cars, AUSCAR and later in HQs, usually acquitting himself well. In between he worked extensively as a movie stunt driver: as Phil himself explained to AMC, all of the Mel Gibson driving scenes in the original Mad Max movies were done by Phil Brock.