Small business owners need to make sure they're protected. After all, you never quite know what's around the corner. And that's where City Rural Insurance Brokers come into play. They've been around since 1995. Yep. The same year Larry Perkins and Russell Ingle won at Bathurst. They can help you with insurance for business, transport, trades, farming and much, much more. Talk to the City Rural team now to grab a quote, jump online at cityrural.au. They are your insurance pit crew. Motor Sport is the ultimate test of performance. That's why BWT Alpen F1 team is proud to endorse HighSpec. Castrol's new hybrid performance standard. Castrol HighSpec engine oils endorsed in Motor Sport designed for every day. A Motor Sport podcast network production. Hey everyone, welcome along. It is the week of the Great Race. It's the V8 salute podcast powered by Castrol. And on this episode, we're not previewing this year's race because we did that last week. It sure did. We are going back 40 years because this year marks the 40th anniversary of the end of Group C, which I think to many of our listeners and longtime Motor Sport fans is the glory era. Glory days of Australian touring car racing. Do you agree? Are you in that group? I post-date Group C, so I appreciate all the cars that came out of it. Was it the glory days? I don't know, I think it's rough to call anything V glory days because I was at Gary Wilkerson's dad used to tell him the glory days are today. Yeah, I think it depends on your era. It depends on when you're born or when you're growing up and you're most impressionable. But I think when you look back on it, what are we? 60-ish years of Bathurst history now of the Great Race. That's the era, Group C, so we're talking 1973 to 1984. That's the era of surging growth in the race. Going from a race to a part of Australian culture. That's where I look at it and that's why I think, and this is not to denigrate Group A, they had supercars, which by the way is the longest serving platform in the history of the race. It's wild to think that now, isn't it? Which I'm sure the naysayers out there are like, but the reality is, it is by the length of the straight. But you think of that '73 to '84 period, the race booms, the television coverage carries it onwards and upwards. The two big stars are Brock and Moffat, particularly through that '70s. Johnson emerges to be the other guy in the '80s. There's iconic cars, as you mentioned. It's at the point where, the funny thing is here, Channel 7 constantly linked with history at Bathurst and so they should be, but in that period, it was only Bathurst. The odd touring car around, depending on the deals and wheeling of the time, but they weren't able to build a whole year around. It was this race, that was it. Sure, it'd be like incorporating the Melbourne Cup in with some other horse racing calendar, but it's just, it was not a thing back then. And it speaks to the way Bathurst was always separate from the championship, that it was never packaged as one big thing until Tony Cochran went and made it happen. Which I think, thinking about it, I still see people, you know what? I am sick of people whinging online lately. It feels like it's gone through the roof. But one of the constant ones is, take it out of the championship. They don't try hard enough. They'll try harder. I completely disagree with it. I think if you're going to be crowned the champion of your field, you have to have contributing to the championship, the marquee event. And the thing was, in the group Sierra, it was part of a championship on occasion. It wasn't part of what we call the championship, because for a time, some years, some years it wasn't, it was around the Australian, well, manufacturers' championship, man-champ that you get your trophy mailed to you in December. Yeah. And no one remembers or cares who won that. Unless you were the manufacturer of the one. In which case you told everyone. Yeah. The hard cause, remember, but otherwise, no one really knows. It sort of gives a flying. But when you look at 73 to 84, clearly it is head to head, hold it and forward. It takes until the early '80s for Nissen with the Bluebird, the Mazda RX-7, the BMW 635 to come along and be those interlopers. I mean, Kevin Bartlett's Camaro was kind of the first of those, but it was a V8, it was GM, so it was different but not that far different than it was kind of this evil invader. But when you look at Batha 73 to 84, I mean, there's 11 races in that group C period. Starting with 73, which Moffatt and Pete Gagan win, and ending with 84 with the Big Bangas, Peter Brock, Larry Perkins, John Harvey, David Parsons, one, two, of course, those cars at the National Motor Racing Museum. Yes. For race week and moving forward, which is so exciting and so thrilling given what unfolded, just with the murkiness of the history, that really didn't need to be murky as to which car was which I always felt I knew, but was what took us doing a big magazine story in muscle car 10 years ago to do it. I copped some horrible messages about that, not just, I mean, I've got a bit of a thick skin with being something of a motorsport public figure. I've got death threats about this. Really? I've never known that. I've never told anyone, but I've got people sending me messages of telling me what was going to happen to me because I had the hide to go and basically record history. Yeah. That's horrible. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Some nasty stuff. And I didn't take a lot of it seriously, but you've got it to a certain degree. You know, it's just, I mean, really? It was just a debacle. So I'm going to be very thrilled this week to spend some quality time with those two cars together with the Bowden zone, Bowden zone, back car, 25 with 25 on it because that's how it should be. But 40 years on, big group C exhibition at the museum, by the way, so National Motor Racing Museum will be there over the course of the week going for a look, but no one got to look in in group C in this period, like it's holding them forward. They just win Bathurst, holding more times than forward every time. If we had it that dominant now in the last 11 years, people would be like, oh, actually, I was going to say they'd be complaining, but they can play to bet everything else. This is true. This is true. Yeah. But I mean, it's that period of holding versus forward that really, really entrenched that holding versus forward racetrack rivalry throughout the fandom during car racing. I mean, it was partially there in the lead up in the closing years of serious production with the Menaros versus the Falcons, and then eventually the Taranas versus the Falcons. But it was this year with, I was going to say, with the factory Holdens versus the factory forwards, there was rarely a factory presence from forward throughout this period. There was a bit of money going Moffat's way in some years, and then famously after the one to with Colin Bond in 1977, the tap carner got turned off. But Holden was there the whole time funding quietly covertly funding the Holden dealer team. But over time, it became pretty apparent that it wasn't that covert in the reality of that. And all the executives turned up for the race? Yeah. It wasn't that covert. Yeah, correct. But the start of Group C was the end of the Ford Motor Company as an entrant. So 73, just after that, they're out. They're gone. Moffat's back to being a privateer. So when you look at that Group C era, so Ford winged the first two, 73 and 74, Holden in 75 by Brock and Sampson's privateer car, then Morrison fits Patrick Wind by a privateer car. Moffat and X win 77. So that's the Moffat Ford dealer. So Ford reengaged re-infused, then they step out and then they get smashed 78, 79, 80 Brock Richards, 81 Dick Johnson, John French by that stage dicks the new Ford holder of the Covenant for the blue side, Allen's a Mazda man by then, and then Brock and Perkins go 8, 283, 84 with John Harvey, of course, part of the 83 win. So it's eight to Holden, four to Ford in the Group C period at Bathurst. But out of those eight for Holden, it's seven to Brock, six to the dealer team. So it's the dominant period of his nine, I mean, one comes just before Group C and 72 and one comes in Group A in 87 on the rebound. But I mean, it's a level of domination that was, that era was prime for it. Because I really laugh when I hear people saying about how it was so much better back in the day and it was, and it was, and they were all so much nicer to one another and this and that whatever, absolute rubbish. They were all out homologating. So the word then was homologating, today's parody, back then the buzzword was homologating. They were all camping on the steps at cams, pushing and pulling and trying to get things through and make sure that the other people didn't get things through. That was going on like you would have believed. And if you think the last few years have been controversial, political, my God, go and look up this era. It was a good trial. Well, the never and almost never ending saga of the Mazda RX seven trying to be admitted as a Group C touring car. I mean, that started what late '70s, maybe late '78, early '79. And they allowed, they did allow it in much to a lot of unrest from competitors. He said, well, it doesn't have a back seat or four doors. But it wasn't admitted with the peripheral ported engine, the 12a was a 12a to start with. And then they went 13B, 18, three. I think that came in. Yeah. The Mazda is interesting, it's a good point you raised because for that whole Group C period of '73 to early '80s, it's Holden V Ford. But then Moffat arrives with that. And as in Allen's way, he does it properly. So it's not just making up the numbers instantly, Holden and Ford fans have something in common. I hate the Mazda. Yes. I think the introduction of the Mazda RX seven to Group C touring car racing was brilliant. Cams should be applauded for it. Yes, it wasn't a traditional touring car, but it brought a spotlight to the sport. It brought a big star back to it who really was on the fringe there for quite some time with no Ford money. And it gave another reason to have another player in the game. And on another side, it's not like Allen Moffat was there in a Ford and Dick Johnson's there in a Ford Moffat's there in something else. And it just gave that extra layer to it all. And the funny thing was, I looked at this, when you look at Moffat in Ford's in Group C at Bathurst, he wins or blows up. '73, he wins, '74, '56, DNF, '77 he wins, '78, '90, DNF. And then he gets in the Mazda, which just didn't have enough go up and down the hill. I mean, reliable, and that's one of the big things about racing now that we're just not used to, reliability, big thing back then. But in the Mazda, what in '81, he was 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, yeah, '82, I think they were delayed here in Katiyama, that was 7th or 8th, '83, he's 2nd, and in '84 he's 3rd. So it was there or thereabouts every time, but it's just Brock and the dealer team who had a slightly bigger, better, louder, bigger engine mousetrap. And the fear mongering and scare tactics around the 13th, the fuel injected 13B coming in in '83. Dick's line, wasn't it? It's like giving Grant Kenny Flippers. Flippers? Yeah. Yeah. I'm off, it went out and so that '83 was the year where all the regulations, all these various concessions were granted to the different manufacturers who asked for them. And they were announced midway through the Oren Park Round of the Touring Car Championship. Not during the round itself, like at 9 o'clock in the morning, during the race, during the 45 minute race. And that's why I laugh so much, and I have to talk about these things more often. Because could you imagine if that era where all these people say how great it was, could you imagine if partway through the round tazzy, let's say this year, they lobbed the latest parity change for the next round or the insurance race? And so for tomorrow, the Mustangs are going to have to carry more weight up on the top roller. But could you imagine them lobbing that mid-race partway through the commentary? And now down to the pits. Oh my God. You wouldn't have to watch the track for the action. Seriously, seriously, but, oh, it was better back in the day. One other point about Moffat and Mazda that I'd like to make is that he was the perfect guy to be the Mazda person if everyone else was turning on Mazda. If all the fans were, if all the Holden Ford fans were united in their distaste and dislike of Mazda, Moffat was the perfect black cap because he didn't care. Yeah. He had the right personality and the right sort of ability to brush off any sort of derision, but that incredible photo of him at the 82 Sandown 400 where he was pinged what? Three times for speeding in pit lane, which, yeah, anyway. He was going quick. He was going quick. I don't think it was an actual speed limit per se. Yeah, and then just standing in front of the packed Sandown grandstands to claim his quote unquote win, standing on like standing on the door bars, like facing the crowd, giving them the full Richard Nixon piece of science and, yeah, just booze raining down. It's amazing. And you know what, we do live in very different times, 1982 to 2024, but I did see somewhere the other day, the 90s, obviously we're talking group A here. Jim Richards is famous. You're all a pack of arsehole speech, but different times and different lead up. And I think it was on Scott Pies podcast and I've seen a social clip about this here. I know they had the context quite right because they were talking about, well, if we said that these days, we'd be absolutely canned for it. But you've got to put context behind all these things. And on that day, Denny Holm had died, Jim Richards is a good friend of Denny Holm's, that it wasn't like the nuisance was suddenly unpopular just that day or in the last month or two leading up to it. That had been going for basically two and a half years of that car that the fans felt was unfair and it wasn't in the spirit of the rules against the two wheel drive cars. So you had all these other elements at play that culminated with that. Now, the point being that if a driver got booed on the podium at Bathurst this year, would they give it back? Maybe not call them a pack of arseholes. But there's nothing to say that if a driver was in the same circumstance today, someone was, you know, heaven forbid, had had a hard take a pass away in a race tomorrow, which certainly not what we're hoping or planning to happen. All those background elements, I think people would be going, yep, fair play. You got booed for all that stuff and you fired one and called them a pack of arseholes, mongrels, whatever it might be, you know, it's about the context and all the elements around it, not so much just the situation of the thing said in the two seconds it said. Oh, for sure. And Jim talked about that in the German Jim book that we do book that was a good book. Still is. Supercars in the Gold Coast, where paradise meets power, witness a festival like atmosphere in an adrenaline you weekend, vote on and off the track with boost mobile, boosting the party vibes, supercars on the Gold Coast, it's the place to be, boosting mobile Gold Coast 500, October 25, the 27, book now a ticket tech, supercars unforgettable. It's interesting to note that that's possibly the only time the winner of the race has been strongly booed. Because I can even think of a lot of times throughout history of the second and third place getters getting booed. Moffatmaster. Moffatmaster. Scott McLachlan in 2018 got booed mercilessly on the podium. Yeah, that was very much, I think, off the back of a lounge win and a Commodore crowd that he was the only forward bloke there and he copped it and he gently tapped the forward badge on his race suit as a response to the crowd because he must have been coming the following year. I forgot about that. Yeah. But a point being, yes, times are different, we're different, we talk about that Moffat situation, it's sand down, but someone has to put the hat on, readily put the black hat on and go, you know what, I don't care, I love it, bring it on. And Pie looks to be the guy right now, only that he's going to drive twice in the year, that's the problem. I do the high profile races. I'm not afraid to say what he feels and thinks, has got some online sentiment behind him, has and does rub up a lot of people in the sport and in the pit lane, but controversy creates interest and creates awareness and creates a following and clearly he's got more of a following now than he's had in his whole career. That's true. And in terms of controversy creating following and mainstream coverage, Jim Richards was on a current affair the following week after the '92 race. And it went mainstream, it went mainstream. So I'd like to say, there's nothing to say that a driver in the monitor, I do see this a lot where the people say that, oh, the drivers can't say anything, they can't do anything. Yes, they can, they choose not to, they can, oh, but they'll be blown back on socials and this and that. Well, you don't have to deal with that, we live in a different world to 1992, but I'd love to see someone actively be the villain. I mean, if it came, I can only see the scenario at Bathurst. If someone tagged someone on the last lap for the win and moved him out of the way or put him in a sand trap. Oh, Murray's corner hedging. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And particularly if it's one brand of car on the other. Totally. Yeah. Or if it's a fan favorite that gets hedged. So, yeah, stand back because then, oh, beyond, it'll be on and that's all we want. I mean, we are still talking, when you think about mainstream, i.e. beyond us, we're hardcore, so I classify us as hardcore. But for the Joe Blow fan out there, it's the Bathurst podium they remember, isn't it? The gym reaches pack of our souls. Oh, remember that day? Oh, yeah. The vision gets rolled out on panel shows and all that stuff. What's that? 32 years ago? What's the second and third most man on the street podium moment? We sit cray lands crying in 2006, the Brock, like the rental moral podium, throw and he's doing a shoey and, no, no, no, but it's not it's the length of the straight back to second. Like it's. Even Reynolds riding Luke yielding onto the podium, I don't think, I don't think that it's not iconic. It's funny. Funny. Oh, yeah. Again, we remember it. On brand. Sure. Luke remembers it. Remember that he had a torn ACL. Yeah. That's right. Exactly right. But yeah, here's the challenge. I mean, if it really means something to you, give it back to the crowd or, you know, what I would like to see, and I think I've said this before, when's the last time you saw a driver cry on the podium at Bathurst in either absolute jubilation of victory or devastation of defeat and coming so close, but not quite winning? That's a pretty good question. I can only think lounge in OC. Yeah. I can't think of like even just looking at the years in front of me, I can't think it's too many that would have come after that. So remember there was a betting market. I think they've stopped it now for if the winning driver would stand on the roof of their car. Because they're all told to do it up now. It's pretty much part of the photo, isn't it, really? What about if driver cries on the podium or abuses the public? It's like, what extreme are the other? Show me emotion if you're in the race this week. Give me something. I want to see something. Yeah. I want to see something. I remember when this was a Group C podcast. Yeah. Let's get back to Group C. Iconic cars. Yeah. I think the thing was that back in that period you had race, cars were racing at Bathurst that they weren't quite, you could get something pretty close on the road. Not the same thing. No. You could have the Joe Blow 4-cylinder Tarana or the 6-cylinder Falcon equivalent. You know, whatever it was. You could get the hot it up version. You could go and buy if you were in the right spot an A9X Tarana or an L34 option SLR-5000. But as that Group C era went along, the cars went away more from what was driven on the road but not that far away. You know, like the flares really started kicking in and the back, you think about the little boot lead spoil, it started popping up on the Commodore and the Falcon. And then by the end of Group C, that were these big fat, huge tea trays off the back of it that you could serve up morning tea on. But I loved, you know, flared guards. That stuff was really the evolution of Group C, but it still had that connection pretty closely to what you could drive on the road. Well, it's funny. Like you look at that very end of Group C and they probably have more from a visual standpoint, more relation to the early 5.0-litre V8 during cars than anything in Group A, even like the VL walking shore that had that wild body kit. Those the late Group C cars looked like awesome road cars, like road cars that you'd take racing. Yeah. And that was a whole, I guess, part of the big attraction of that era. Yeah. And then if you jump from 84 to 92 when the winged cars came along. Because when you went Group A, all the spoilers disappeared and the flares and things were much more standard looking. And even by the end of Group A though, you know, look at it, just in GTR, just a little boot lid back thing on the rear of it. The VN Commodore just had a little boot lid spawn on the back. The Sierra had that little big wild tail on the rear. The big wild tail on the rear. That's right. You know, M3 BMW had a little tiny little wing on it. If you'd fallen asleep after the 84 race and woke up in time for 92, it didn't feel that different. It really didn't feel that different in terms of the look and feel of the car. No flared guards, obviously, but the wing packages was sort of looked like an evolution that you would go. Yeah. That kind of makes sense. Skipped a few bottles in between, but didn't really seem to matter. But I think the other thing is you had, you know, if you look through Holden in that Group Sierra, you've got the XU one, then the next year you've got the L34, then three years later you get the A9X, then in 80, you get the Commodore, was the VC by then, the VB was the car during the VC by the time it got to Bathurst, VH Commodore comes along for 82, and then you get a few different iterations, SS model, all that, and then the VK Group C, Car of 84, which there was what? Four of those? Five of those? I think something like that. Two dealer team, a roadways, a Cullen, and a Janssen, so five. So there was something relatively updated every year. Same with Falcon, you know, the coupe sort of did last a long time, but it kept getting tweaked. Yeah. So XA, XB, XC for 77, and then the Cobra version, Cobra for 78 and the XD for 80. So you weren't with the one car or base car for a long time. So then the colours changed. I guess my point is, and maybe it's just because of the era that I grew up in. But I think a lot of our listeners are like this. I think they are. If you roll me out, photos, or the start shots, or vision from those years, there's enough of a difference between each year, whether it be models, makes, drivers, colour schemes, albeit subtle differences that I can pick the years. I'm a bit of a blur. I've got to tell you, in the last maybe seven years, eight years of supercars, I mean, when you swap Falcon to Mustang, that helps me. But you know, years of ZB comadors, and I'm not saying I didn't like it, or it wasn't a good thing. But it took away all those differences that we got every 12 months that we did get in Group C. That's a valid point. I guess that speaks to the sort of stability there's been in the rules and the level of it's ironic that the more money that has come into the sport, the less those differences occur, because you don't, all of a sudden, teams don't want to be upgrading their cars or making significant alterations to their cars year on year. They want a stable rules package for two, three years, so they're not having to junk all these bits after 12 months. Well, when you go to the end of '84, and pretty much all those cars were worthless. Yeah. Some of them got reborn a sports sedan, some were converted Group C comadors into Group A. They were the fair bit now. Yeah. But they were not then. It's quite amazing, but great iconic era. I mean, Brock's the clear star of the Group C era, Moffat's the other star, Johnson emerges, but then you've got those supporting cast players, I guess you would call them. Alan Grice is a big part of that story there. Well, he pops up in a few different ways with the Craven Mile Taranas, then he's in the BMW for a year, and that ends very abruptly as he explains in the upcoming book on his life. He's just about to come out. So I'm here, it's landed in the country, just got to get through customs and out to the warehouse and then not far away for pre-orders to dispatch, but yeah, he's another one. I mean, Larry Perkins is a big part of this, but he gets sort of folded it under Brock for a chunk of his time. And then there's the Janssen part of his time as well. Totally. I mean, Janssen was what podium in '79 and '80. And then you had almost, oh, in '77, but Larry, yeah, and Larry was there, it wasn't. That was his first one. So Jim Richards is a part of that sort of era as well, but it'll be a step underneath Brock because he was overshadowed, but clearly was around. When he went to the BM, it wasn't a threat at breakfast. I mean, it's biggest threat. He was 83, the year of the alleged dirty fuel with him, Frank Arner, but that probably leads me to the next point that it's probably not so much a group C thing, but it's a group C era. Look at the innovation in the race in that time. Hardy's Heroes pops up. You know, this concept of a top 10 shootout for pole position on a Saturday morning that gets shown on Tally. I mean, the concept now of Bathus 1000 TV on a Saturday is completely normal, totally. But in that era, oh my God, that is unbelievable. I must watch this. This is holy crap. And I looked it up the other day. So to get the pole position in 78, the first year that they had the shootout, Hardy's Trophy qualifying, I think it was officially called that year, was seven grand for pole. It's not too bad. I mean, I've done the numbers. Okay. No, no, no. I could take you there. So there's a big deal being made by Boost Mobile about the biggest ever pole check for Bathus that's $15,000. Seven grand in 1978 is $42,000 in today's money. So I know 15 grand is a number is a record, but yeah, like that's a house deposit. Yeah. Correct. So 70, I think was, was that Bondi that got that in the Cobra or Brock get that in the terrain? I feel like Brock got that. Yeah, it was Brock. He got the first one, didn't he? I think Bond was on the outside of the front row. Yeah. Keep in mind also that that wasn't the first time that there was Saturday television coverage because they'd done it the previous year, like the tail end of qualifying and it wasn't that exciting. No. And then the shootout came along for the next year. And there was a pit stop competition and that 77 coverage as well. Is that on the DVD? It is on the DVD. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't in town though. No. No. Not like this year. No. I think the winners received watches. Oh, nice. Yeah. You don't. It's been a long time since you got a watch for, I mean back in those days, Group C or there was, if you go back through the old programs of what dollars per lap, there was lap leader money, there was, if you had contingencies of, if you had a valvoline sticker, you got this much. Yeah. If you finish first and all this sort of stuff, you could earn $50 for every lap of the race. I know. If seven grand in '78 is 42 grand now, you times that by six, that's 300 bucks a lap. Yeah. That's not bad. So, handy money. Yeah. But that was back in the day of still giving out champagne bottle prizes. Oh, yes. You know, you do a certain thing, you'd get 10 cases of champagne and all sorts of stuff. Well, it was at 82 where Alan Brown, like boss of recar, put up, what is it, 10 bowls of champagne or some prize money. There was something that he put up for the first driver to record a lap and a touring car at an average speed of 100 miles an hour. And he thought Brock had done it. So he went down, congratulated him and got ready to give him whatever it was. And they redid the calculations and worked out. He was a couple of tens short. Yeah. And it ended up being his own driver. His own co-drive, Alan Grycy, went and did it a few minutes later. That's what we're missing. A team to create its own award and prize money at Bathurst to hand out. Well, didn't Jenson hand out a Cadbury Schwepp's trophy to the pole winner that he just created off his own bat? Well, I looked up the program for that. So in '78, because I wanted to know how much money you got for pole, I think the Cadbury Schwepp's cup came with $2,000 and there was $5,000 from another sponsor. So forgetting pole, you got seven grand. But yeah, it got chipped in by a few different parties and one was a trophy and one was cash. So everyone sort of put their bid in. I can't remember what the final number was for how much money the Holden dealer team actually earned at Bathurst in '78. But I worked it out for the Jim Richards book because Jim, I think, was on 5%. So all these laps, so they led 128 laps in ice, led the various points where you got bonus money at various times. They won the index of performance as well, which was in your award based on engine capacity and time of day, I don't know. There was this big formula, yeah, something like that. How much fuel you were meant to you or how far you should have gone based on the capacity of car and fuel and tyres and all this stuff, inspired by Le Mans, something like that. But there was a lot of money on the table and they picked up a fair bit of it. Yeah, yeah. And if you're on 5%, that's a pretty good whack. The National Motor Racing Museum is a must-see if you're in the central west of New South Wales. It's on the outside of Murray's Corner at the famous Mount Panorama in Bathurst and celebrates the rich history of Australian motorsport. There's famous cars, bikes, memorabilia, so much to take in, including the spectacular immersive room, it gives you an amazing taste of the speed, the sound, and the excitement of the mountain. The museums generally open six days a week and also during events, so visit their Facebook page or themuseumspathurst.com.au website for further details. I'm thinking of, you know, Group C cars, you know, we talk Bluebird RX-7, BMW, iconic brands and iconic colours too. I mean, the black and gold BMW, the white Bluebird with the little bit of red and blue, Moffatt, white and blue Mazda, Brock, red, white and black Commodore, Johnson, Bluefords, pretty much green for a couple of years as well. Steve Masterson's cars, white with orange and black. Yeah, yeah. Whether they have Falcons or Caprice. I still, and this week at Bathurst is a cool element. That roadways 84 livery, the yellow, black, white and green with those wheel covers. Yeah, I don't think it's a very well publicised livery, but oh, that was cool. That was like cool Group C for me. Right, livery only did three race meetings, because I don't think they did the Grand Prix. They did Sandown 500, Bathurst obviously, and they did basketball at the end of the year. Yeah, and I think they did surfers. Yeah. So yeah, for with that livery, which everyone relaunched and revived themselves for the endurance races off the back of the touring car championship, the livery's got tweaked, the new model car came out. There was so much of that stuff that went on back at the time that that's one of the things about Group C that I really like and yep, huge fields. And don't forget two class cars. So it wasn't just about those outright cars, you know, there were good solid class runners in a lot of those times where it was the three-litre class with the Capris and Barry Seton and Don Smith and those guys and versus all the Maisarex three. Yeah, Don Holland and Don Holland. Well, actually, great that we mentioned the Hollands, because Don's going to be at Bathurst this year. Oh, yes. With the Group C Tarana, because his son David is driving it in the V8 sleuth heritage revival this weekend, that's the oldest car in the field. It's a car that raced at Bathurst in '72 in the Enduro, but it's in its '73 Group C spec that it raced in periods. So it's pretty good. It's the oldest car in the revival field this weekend. And as we bring this podcast out, it's Wednesday and the day before cars hit the track on Thursday for first practice. So fingers crossed for all those revival cars, particularly the Group C era cars, that they have a great run up there. They're going to get so much attention at the mountain this week. It's going to be ace. It's one of the most high-profile support candies I can think of in a long time with the amount of pre-event attention it seems to have garnered. I can't think of another support category in the lead-up at Bathurst, and there's been support categories at Bathurst since, what, '86, '87 when those little poles are? Yeah, I think '85 was the very first one, the M&M's pole size. What I say, big M&M. Yeah, close. Chocolate milk, chocolate, you know? Yeah. You're enough. It's been a long year. I can't remember a support category having this much ground swell, and not just because we're involved in it. I think it's the right event, it's the right flavour, it's the right breadth and depth. So Group C is a big part of it, but Group A is Super Tourism V8, so a part of it too. I think it hits all the marks, and it's going to be the star support category this weekend. Yeah, I can't wait to see all those cars. Especially the 5.0, I know this is a Group C themed podcast, but I can't wait to see the 5.0-litre cars. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's about era, isn't it? Yeah. I think what I like of it, and this is what you do get with Heritage Touring Cars historic, you get to see cars on the track racing one another, didn't race in period. It's kind of like a dream race in a way. Yeah. So you didn't get to see, so Ed Singleton's Roadways Group C Commodore that hasn't raced for 40 years. The car that you would have last seen in the Bathurst Museum, in the National Motor Racing Museum. Yeah. Yep. On track with some Group A cars, well they never raced again, against even some of the Group C cars that were previous era, or that weren't perhaps exactly the same time, I think it's kind of that dream race. What would you have if you had the perfect 55 car filled with a bit of everything? Yeah. This is pretty close. Yeah. It's pretty close. Even a future tour. Even a future tour, which is most certain. Well, what do you think about that was actually probably as close to a Group C, late Group C era car from the performance sort of side of things? Yeah, it's a good point. Yep, Holden four five liter engine, four speed box, pretty minimal arrow, you know, it was just the late '90s equivalent model Commodore that you didn't have to be a top-end professional race team to be able to build and put together. Yeah. And that's the other thing about Group C. Yeah, there were the top tier guys at the front, but they were a small percentage of the field in Bathurst every year. It was the privateers, the back yarders, the garage, you know, they were the garage sisters, really, the touring cars that were able to be the backbone of this race. And it was their one magic moment a year. And look, I don't think that fields of 60, 55, whatever they were, you know, they were regularly that number in that period. They were at the be all and end all because half of these things were absolute shit heaps but run better now and are more reliable now than they were in period that weren't a factor. If you go back through the DVDs that we stock at these races on our online store, you won't see half of these cars off their entry list or the result sheet, or you might see a flash of them. There it is in the pits because it's steaming by the crap and it's out of the race because it's just been slapped together in the last month by two local yokel blokes who've, you know, lived the dream and got there, but it's all over in eight seconds flat. All they had a massive shun in practice and spent all night with the with the tape preparing it and bolting two cars together to make one. Well, and that was that era, wasn't it? I mean, the TAFE smash repair team really did come to the fore in that era. And people say, Oh, but it's such a shame. It's not there. It means a shame from the respect. It's not there to the level it was because of what it did for students and the access and learnings that it gave. So as the sport got more professional, teams had their own people and could do it themselves and didn't need to rely upon, you know, 15 volunteers because they only had a crew of four or five blokes who, you know, half the time were, you know, grab your mate from down the street who would come and help you change a tire and whatever else. But that's that's the era of this race that I think everything's right for its time. And if we suddenly transplanted some of those things from the group C era to now, you'd be like, Oh, Jeepers. But if we, if we just keep it in its era, it works. It's fine. It was, it was what it was. And that's where some of these cars are, you know, when you put one of these cars on the track alongside a group, a group C car gets to group A or group C versus a modern super car, but they were right for their era. I mean, they fit Australia's world in the 70s and 80s of this was our race. These were our cars and our stars. The internationalization was just flickering because you've got the odd overseas driver who came out and did this stuff quite a few in this era, especially, but they didn't come with their own cars, which group A true opened them up to they had to come and drive our cars. And that's why more often than not, not too many of them were, were all that flash. But you, you look at the international winners. So you had John Fitzpatrick in 76, you had Jackie Yicks in 77, otherwise it's the, it's the Aussie contingent. I mean, apart from Jim, we hadn't really got the Kiwis flowing. Yeah. Well, he was the first for, oh, no, he wasn't the first Kiwi on the podium. That was Jim Palmer in 68, but he, well, they actually had a podium. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they had a podium for Jim in 74. If you finished third, you didn't go on the podium. No, I think the winners didn't. That was the prize money. And then you went and had your beer and chips that you had. Or your southern comfort. Yes. Yeah. Was it the next year that? No, that was that you. They were on the car. Yeah. They were on the car. Yeah. But group C era is, you know, that's, I think when the rise of the privateers, that the people who were bored with the top runners, they, they, they didn't just find someone to back, but they were a constant for 10 years, you know, Scotty Taylor and Kevin Kennedy, they're right the way through there. There's so many of those drivers who were just lock them in there, they were every year in the same, you know, if they were in Toronto's and they're in Commonwealth's, if they're in Falcons, they're in a hard top, they're there in a next D or an XC or whatever it might be like. They were in an escort. They were then in the next model. Escort. Yeah. Yeah. And some of those cars, I mean, the value that's in some of those group C cars now that in the day, you couldn't have given them away at the end of group C. No. Well, more valuable, more reliable, and probably have had more exposure and coverage that they did in the period. Well, I see it. Some of the oddballs that have been on the Bathurst grid over the years, was it Chris Hire and his, his fleet of different outies that he ran? He was in VEDUP golf before that. Oh, he was too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we got some weird stuff in comparatively weird, one off in the group A era like the Maserati by Turbo, the Fiat Uno Turbo. But in group C, I mean, we had, you know, they, they ran for a long time. Those Cooper S's, they ran into the mid 70s. Yeah. It's always surprising when you look at just, just when they stop racing minis in the Bathurst 1000, they raced well into group C. Well, for a long time. Yeah. And wasn't it around 76 that there was a push at one point to talk about turning Bathurst into a three liter race? 100%. No outright V8 cars. The ARDC were really hot for that as a concept. And I don't think any of the, I don't think Ford and Holden were. Could you imagine if that had happened? We would not be sitting here talking about that race. I don't think so. I reckon that would have killed. That might have been a, at best case scenario, that would have happened once been a disaster and. Change of burn. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We talked to before about that era. I mean, the cars are the standouts. The drivers as clearly standouts. The evolution of the race in that time, the TV coverage race cam, I mean, it went in color in 75. Yeah. So that's 74 if you were at the track. If you're at the shot in, shot in color, correct. These are big steps in the evolution of the sport and the happening in the group C era. So you compare the Bathurst telecast of 73 to 84 and the resource levels and the people and the cameras and the helicopter and all the stuff that was going on. I mean, it was, it was big ticket stuff. And the fact that there wasn't a one hour lunch break for Sydney and, Sydney and or Melbourne. Yeah. Yeah, which I think 77 might have been the first time that, that wasn't in play. So it's a great era and think about the track too in the group C era. I mean, the dipper was a real dipper, like it's been flattened out over the years. It ain't what it used to be. The bridges popped up. There wasn't a bridge over pit straight. There wasn't a bridge over cod rod. Yeah. The bridge over pit straight, which was created funnily enough after the prime minister, Malcolm Fraser had to cross the track when it was live during the 77 race against the inside. And the other reason I can agree with you on that is because that's actually in the 77 race DVD, because it was done during an ad break that they filmed him standing there waiting for a gap in the traffic at Murray's Corner to do a sprint across to get to the inside of the track because there's no other way to do it. No, lo and behold, there was there was some level of government funding for a bridge the following year. Who'd have thought surely, surely not related. Surely not. I mean, there wasn't a pit wall. No, until I think 79 or 78 or 78, I think. But the bridge and the wall come at the same time. I feel like the bridge came for 77, 78, because Fraser was there 77. Yeah, right. Yeah. So the bridge must have been 78. The pit wall, maybe that was 77, I was talking about here, but speed humps in the pit lane. Yes. The off at memorial speed humps. Yeah. He finished them off. Well, they finished the oil cooler in the Brock mobile Commodore off in 86, but so much of the mountain was not lined by walls in that era. Well, it took two of the world touring car around to get to do the whole thing. Yeah. Be the even at the late 70s that drop on the outside of the turn into Reid Park. There was no wall there. No. It was just just to drop all the way down. No guardrail, no nothing. Yeah. And when you think about it, I mean, obviously it took until it was 86, the first fatality in the history of the race, obviously not at Bathurst, but of the Bathurst 1000/500. I mean, there were some monster accidents in the group, Ciara, that how they got out, I'll never know. I mean, Ron Harrops crashed in 79. Oh, we went out of the ball park at Griffiths, then. He went over the fence and like, off he went, you know, like a video game, which there's no vision of how he got to where he got to. But if you look at where he got to, you just apply your imagination and it doesn't look like fun. Yeah, you do the math. Um, but I don't think you can beat the 74 McCray crash on Conrad. Yeah, it was pretty bad. Oh, Tarana that launches off the hump on Conrad lands floor first into the tree, basically folds itself around the tree. Yeah. Jim Richards was behind it when it happened and just saw him go one way, then the other and then disappeared and remarkable that it was right at the wheel. Wasn't Rod McCray. He was Rod McCray. Yeah. And seriously injured, he was going out with a few scratches, not seriously hurt in any way. I've never seen a photo of it. There is a little bit of vision. I think in one of those Bathurst docos that 74 docos going find it, it's, it's wild. I just, it's just, it's crazy. It's just crazy that he got out of that. Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com/save whenever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes of CD-Tails. Phil Brock did a pretty good number on one of Janssen's Taranas on the Saturday of... 78? 78 rice? Yeah. I think they had to wheel out the spare car and re-sticker it as the race car, which was technically against the rules, but probably that year or two. Group C, I mean, you had on track running start Wednesday, and the whole tea car thing was a thing right through that period where teams could bring other cars and pound around in them up there to put the miles on those cars rather than the race cars for Sunday. But as time went along, I think some people started to twig to the whole, actually, well, if you don't enter the tea car, you can't use it after practice. But what if your real car is in drama? So that's when you got those double entries that started occurring later on, and of course, the cross entering came in at 80. Yeah. So Alan Moffat was the first to do that because he jumped into the Bobby Morris car part way through that race. I think a lot of people forget that he was the first to actually do that. And he wasn't the only one to do that. No. But Brock was the only one to win with that system of jumping cars. But I mean, we go back to 84 that the era that's marked the reason for this, the end of Group C, Moffat's team and the roadways team entered two cars in the race. Of course, they only really were doing it to have an insurance car, really. Because they entered two cars, but also only ever had two drivers at the track. Yeah. They were to drive them. So start them both, go some way down the road until, you know, if one dies in the first part of the race, then, oh, well, you've got your answer. The other one's going to be your car. Which worked out for both teams who both had cars retire early with mechanical dramas. The Moffat one, because he got squeezed into the fence on the original start. And then the roadways car, the teak, the backup car broke a gearbox. Yeah. You know, if you didn't do that, but I think it was the scenario two in Hardy's Heroes where the double entries got deleted or the, because Boris had two cars entered in 79 for D to Questner. And he only two drivers. And I think they qualified both for the shootout or they got them both in the 10, but it was in the days when Hardy's Heroes was the fastest eight and then two at the promoter's discretion, which usually meant that if a superstar had had a bad run, they got inserted into the field and someone got booted, but they had a weird feeling that Harrington might have made it in the second roadways car in 84, but because he's a double entry, they just went out. I think it was the other way around in 84 where it was Hansford was inside the top eight. And so Moffat for Alan Horst, the late Alan Horstley pointed to the route, the ADC zone rules and said, well, it's the eight fastest and he's in the top eight. So I think. And Moffat was still in that shootout as well. Yeah. And I think Harrington got bumped because he was 10th. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's two. Yeah. Didn't necessarily mean if you were 9th and 10th, you were going to get in. Yeah. Moffat and Hansford were 5th and 6th heading into the 84th shootout. Yeah. Makes sense. Nice. And to cover off in the 79th shootout, I think Bob Morris was added to the shootout and the quest to car was 11 the fastest. Yeah. Morris was actually 13th after qualifying and questa was 11th. Yeah. And he said, yeah. Yeah. And he said, yeah. He said, yeah. Yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. Yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. He said, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. could demonstrate that you have the speed and practice to be in the 10, you'd be knocking on the organ on the promoter's door saying, "Hey, what about me?" It's only fresh in my brain because it's 10 years on. So in 2014, Winkup crashed in qualifying, didn't he? As did Dave Reynolds. Both cars, well, Reynolds was fastest of everyone on Thursday. And Jamie Winkup's the reigning current supercast champ with car number one. So under the old, and that's where again, and I'm not trying to do a today's better than back in the day, but I'm just trying to create the contrast to remind people that it wasn't always as great as you might think it was. Under that theory, if you applied the old Hardy's Heroes, it's just the norm, that if they'd added Jamie Winkup into the field for the top 10 shoot out in 2014, under the hole, it's the eight fastest plus two at the promoter's discretion. From the promoter, I want the reigning champion in the field. But then that doesn't give us one of the greatest first stints in the history of the race that he turned in on Sunday. This is true. So careful what you wish for, guys. It wasn't always better back in the day. Looking at that 2014 scenario, I don't know if that would have happened anyway, because in ninth was Garth Tander, who admittedly had no car to take part in the shoot out. Well, he had a car, but it wasn't in service. It wasn't true. And 10th was Craig Lounds. So would Triple 8 have bumped Loundsie for Jamie Winkup? Would they have asked? I would have argued that you're adding him instead of Tander. I mean, fair. Yeah. I'm not one for hypotheticals generally, but when they involve a bit of history like this, I'm up for a little bit of this. But the important thing is Jack Perkins would not be moved out of seventh place. Oh, yes. No, Jack had got his top 10 run in the shoot out there. He's one and only, isn't it? 2014. Well, he's on one car for Charlie Schwerkop. But I mean, the Group C era is, regardless of which era you grew up in, you can't argue the growth of the race in that time. And it goes from being, you know, Bathurst in 72-3 is a big deal. But by 84, it's at the point where the nation sits down and watch it. The nation who doesn't follow any other car racing is aware of it. They know who Peter Brock is. If you win Bathurst, geez, you must be good because that sounds like it's the big thing if you're not into it. I mean, I look at Group C beyond just the cars and beyond just the races and I love all that stuff too. But if you look at it, I don't know, a step two or three back, look at all the advancements, look at the developments, look at the place, look at Bathurst as a track, look at it standing in the world, look at the oncoming of the international flow on that came through Group C and then really hit for Group A. If that was right or wrong, that's a whole other debate. But it's a pretty golden era when you look at all that stuff, when you look at it altogether. Totally. Yeah. Speaking of the platform that the race became over that period of time, you think of the massive impact the '80 race had on Dick Johnson's life, on his trajectory, the fact that he probably came off better by having that disastrous issue of avoiding the rock and crashing than he would have if he'd actually gone on to it, dominantly win the race. If that had happened maybe five years earlier, would that level of public outpouring of support and being matched dollar for dollar by Ford, would all that have happened? I'm not sure if the race had the clout at that point, whether that could have happened. Maybe not or not to the same level. Yeah. Not to the same degree, but iconic cars, iconic drivers, a chapter in the race's history that is forever a huge part of it. No matter whether you like it or lump it, whichever of the eras is your favorite, you can't deny that the Group C era that ended 40 years ago. The fact that it's 40 years on, we're celebrating it, we're loving it, we're talking about it. Yes, there's always rose-coloured glasses. That's just the nature of history and life and everything that moves on in time. But I think it stands the test of time pretty well that Group C era, when the cars were, they went from being kind of just what was on the road to that next level up. They were really a bit more aspirational, like a 350 Monaro was still a hot car to have in the late 60s compared to what you drove on the road and you had in the driveway. But by the time you look at a flared VHVK Commodore or a Bluebird or an XE Falcon. You couldn't walk into a showroom and buy them. You couldn't get them like that. It had that next level on it that, yep, you could get the top tier road car equivalent, but it still had another step to the race car. And that's what I think race cars are race cars. Yeah. And they look and smell and see and feel racey and they've got that next step away from being roady. Yeah. And that's what Group C eventually gave us. 100% just utterly iconic cars. Any time you can fit a rear tire off a Porsche 935 Lamour sports car, you've got a race car. What was that on? That was on the final Group C Falcons. I love it. The big 19-inch rear Dunlox. There's nothing more Group C iconic to me than the Johnson 83 Bathurst shootout lap. You just talked about a fat rear tire has triggered me straight away to it. It's fat rear tires. It's lurid green. It's on the edge of out of control because winning pole position at Bathurst probably stood above winning any other race bar Bathurst in a year. For prize money. For prize money, for TV time, for swinging dick factor like big ticket stuff. Two and a half to three minutes of guaranteed TV time just before the news. If you were like two or three. If you were the pole sinner, they'd show the full lap if you won pole. Then all the interviews and the trophies and all that. It was a big deal. It was a genuine big deal. Straight away, if you go, Australia's greatest touring cars. The cars that come out of the Group C era just keep flowing. It's the green stuff. It's the true blue Falcon. It's brought to run around. Take a view of your Brock to run along list. It's the Mazda, which is iconic, the bluebirds iconic, the BMW's iconic, probably more iconic for the Group A era, but it was a part of that Group C world. There's no name and instantly recognizable cars that are from that period. A lot of we're around and doing stuff afterwards and before, but that will forever be a golden year of the race that we won't see the likes of that ever again. I think that's the reason why we love it so much. Then, the National Motor Racing Museum at Bathurst this week and race weekend and moving forward have a 40 year celebration exhibition of Group C cars, a bit of everything there. I think Murray Carter's Mazda's there. Of course, the two HDT big bangers are together for the first time in a long time. There's got escorts. I think I saw a Datsun roll in there somewhere. There's a Triumph Dolomite. There's the full gamut of the Group C experience, really. It's a bit of everything. I think there's a Capri in there. There's all sorts of stuff. Roll on into the museum. It is open all day, every day, through the great racing in the aftermath. We tend to pop in Monday morning for a little look before we jump in the car and drive back to Melbourne. Normally, we'd be there on Thursday night, but this year, we're not going to be there on Thursday night, but that's the bad news. The good news is that Brad Owen, the museum team will be with us at V8 Sleuth Live at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre. We're going to be in the E and McIntosh Theatre for this year's V8 Sleuth Live event. From Harpass 7, Thursday evening, Tony Cochran's with us, our special guest, it's Cocko's first time at Bathurst in 12 years. I'm not going to ask him about Group C Eric because Marty would never clue about any of that. It's a bit before his time, but there's three bikes who are going to drop in appearances who will have great memories of that era. Neil Crompton, Mark Scafe, and Mark Larkham. Larkham is going to stop by. All three of those guys are going to make some special quick guest appearances. We're going to have old pile of fun. Tickets are still on sale. The link is in the show notes to this episode and how you can get yours from the BMEC website. It is going to be a pile of fun. I'm told there's a bunch of competitors from the Heritage Revival category who are going to come along. You probably see and meet some drivers who are racing some of these cool Group C cars on the night at V8 Sleuth Live. If I spot any of them there, I'll just point them out. We've got a bit of a Group C connection and a link to our V8 Sleuth Night this week as well. The Heritage Revival, we're getting asked by lots of people, every session is on Fox Sports and KO Live. That's Thursday. There's practice qualifying and a race. Friday, two races in Saturday, one race. The second race on Friday and the Saturday race will both be on Channel 7 and 7 Plus. You can catch some of the action of these cool Group C cars. Part of the Heritage Revival field at Bathurst this week on the box. I really can't wait to see all those cars track side. I can't wait to walk through the paddock on Wednesday. It's going to be a long walk. It's going to be a long walk. It's going to be a long walk, so it's going to be a stand out. It's going to be a stand out. Don't forget to, if you want to get a bit closer to our pod, we would like you to get closer. You can become part of our family, the V8 Sleuth Podcast Plus family. If you don't like ads, we can get rid of the ads for you. Bonus episodes, your chance to vote on future content much more. Get to it now. The link's in the show notes, but it's v8sleuth.supportingcast.fm because it's your support out of members that help us put together this podcast. So big thank you everybody who's got involved. If you see us, with its will on ourself, Conner O'Brien's with us, Shane Rogers is with us again at Bathurst over the course of the next few days, please say good day. Castro Bathurst daily, back this year, from Thursday onwards. So all the goings on of each day, at the track for four days from Thursday to Sunday, we'll wheel out the microphones and give you the latest and greatest in what's going on at the mountain. But in the meantime, have a great, great race, whether you're track side or you're watching on TV at home, or in transit on a plane, or wherever you might be, it is going to be another big chapter in mountain history. As always, thanks again for tuning in. Totally appreciate it. 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