Australias Bathurst Legends Of The 70S

[fred007]

The Classic Bathurst 1000 draws near once again on October 4 to the 7th 2012...I can remember as a pimply headed teenager with a hot EH Holden waking up at 5.30 on Sunday morning waiting for channel 7 to start there coverage of the great race.Back then it was called the Bathurst 500.The Live coverage back in the early 70s was state of the art with 20 odd live cameras around the track.I would tape on my new VHS tape recorder the whole race from beginning to end of which i have just converted to Blu Ray for safe keeping.Boy those were the days of guys like Big Rev Kev.Peter Perfect ,Morris,Moffat,Mr Cherry Ripe Peter Wherret Colin Bond to name but a few. Please share some of your stories of the great Race?????

Bathurst's legend was penned by two drivers: Moffat and Brock

The 1970s was a pivotal decade for 'Bathurst' -- dominated by two giants of touring car racing. Between them, Allan Moffat and Peter Brock won eight of 10 Bathurst 500/1000s between 1970-79. Even if they had never gone on to greater achievements, they will always be remembered for making The Mountain their playgroun

[eaustev]

The Hardie Ferodo 500 as I recall as a kid. In those days the streets would be deserted all day as absolutely everybody would be indoors watching it on TV. Of course as soon as the race was over everybody would take to the streets pretending to be race drivers.

Certainly has nowhere near the same profile now from what I understand.

Certainly remember Bill Brown rolling his GTHO Falcon along the fence at skyline, I think that was about 1970.

[eaustev]

And the remains of the 1970 Bill Brown crash. Amazing that he walked away from this with 1970 level safety.

[Jitar]

There has been some incredible racing moments at Bathurst over the years but for me the best were during the 70's when rivalry peaked between Ford & Holden and Moffat & Brock.

A lot changed in the 80's with Moffat moving to the RX7 and the regs changing to group A. Did not seem the same after that, maybe I just got older.

[pantah]

So Bathurst is this weekend.. any ideas on how i can watch it? Interent??

[bdenner]

Star Sports 109 (TRUE VISIONS) have the 1st 3 hours live at 05:30 then the finish later in the day. Same as last year.

Edit: One of the rules I liked was the requirement to make at least 500 identical production models of the vehicles available for purchase by the general public. If I remember rightly there were strict rules governing the competitors and modifications to the cars.

One could walk into a dealer and order a GTHO Phase 3 Ford, XU1 Torana (remember them?) Hemi Charger with 3 x dual barrel Weber carbs etc. Worth a fortune now in pristine condition!

[Jitar]

I liked that 500 production model rule as well. Now days the V8supercars have become another silhouette formula. Sadly the days of buying a car remotely similar to the Bathurst race cars are long gone. So is the variety of car sizes, layouts, models and brands on the track that was a great part of Bathurst up to the 90's.

The V8supercar mob must be worried about the demise of the Falcon so the 2013 rules or Car Of The Future as they call it, are going to change to allow other makes to compete. Looks like they all use a standard frame, suspension, tyres and transmission. Any car maker with a 4 door sedan body could compete.

Apparently Mercedes E Class and Nissan Altima will join the Falcons and Commodores. The publicity goes on about each car's DNA but in reality the difference between the cars is the driver, engine, cosmetic body panels & tuning.

.

[pantah]

The Kelly brothers will run a Nissan, already a prototype built.. engine i think is some older version with a cast iron block

The E38 Chargers now are worth very big money.. A mate had one when i was younger.. the triples looked great, but it was a pigs breakfeast under the bonnet..

I believe Dick Johnsons team will run one car in the true blur colours and one of the vodafones in a brock scheme..

I dont have 109 so seems I will not see much..

[Jitar]

There was some media reports last month about Nissan using the VK56DE engine complete with DOHC 4 valve heads but with capacity reduced to 5.0L and max revs and output controlled in line with the Ford and Holden V8s.

Those E38 Chargers really looked the part back in the early 70's. Pity their history at Bathurst was relatively Brief.

[kartman]

Great race today loved the 888's Philip Morris colour scheme oops must be politically correct the retro HDT colour scheme