HDT Brock Commodores Race Of Champions
HDT VC Brock Commodore Race of Champions held at Bob Jane's Calder Park Raceway in 1980. Footage from old Channel 9 Wide World Of Sports TV Show.
Bob Jane negotiated successfully to have the Australian GP staged at his own Calder Park circuit on November 16, 1980 and as well as bringing Jones and his Championship-winning Williams-Cosworth FW07 back home, also invited rising Italian F1 star Bruno Giacomelli in his V12 Alfa Romeo 179 and French Ligier F1 driver Didier Pironi, to drive a leased Elfin F5000 car. Local drivers in other F5000 cars made up the rest of the field.
To promote their ground-breaking coverage of F1 racing at the time, the Nine Network agreed to telecast the AGP meeting live across Australia not only the F1 race, but a proposed Race of Champions event with 12 of the top drivers competing against each other in two races driving identical cars.
Peter Brock jumped at the opportunity to provide these cars, as coming hot on the heels of his inaugural Bathurst victory in a Commodore the previous month, it provided an unrivalled opportunity to promote his new cars to a national audience. Twelve early-production HDT cars were selected for the race all with manual gearboxes: one Tuxedo black, two Firethorn Red and the rest Palais White the only three colours available in the new Brock range.
Apart from mandatory safety equipment like alloy half roll-cages, safety harnesses and fire extinguishers the cars were otherwise identical to the HDT Commodores already trickling into Holden showrooms around the country. The only exception was their three-spoke Momo steering wheels, which were crudely hand-engraved with each cars SV (Special Vehicle) number, which also matched their racing number.
Because the event was billed as the Race of Champions, the 12 cars prepared for the event were referred to as HDT ROC Commodores. The allocation of cars to the cast of champion drivers for the two Race of Champion events one on Saturday and the other on Sunday was decided by a ballot on Friday and this is how they lined up: RoC SV1 (white) Charlie OBrien; RoC SV2 (white) Tony Edmondson; RoC SV3 (white) Dick Johnson; RoC SV4 (white) Bob Jane; RoC SV5 (white) Kevin Bartlett; RoC SV6 (red) John Bowe; RoC SV7 (black) Peter Brock; RoC SV8 (white) Jim Richards; RoC SV9 (white) Didier Pironi; RoC SV10 (white) Colin Bond; RoC SV11 (red) Jack Brabham; RoC SV12 (red) John Harvey. However only 11 of the 12 cars actually raced, as the one intended for John Harvey suffered engine problems and was withdrawn.
The grid for the first race was in number order, with OBrien on pole and Brabham on the back and when the flag dropped, it was on for young and old.
It was meant to be a fun race, but John Bowe, who finished second behind eventual winner Kevin Bartlett in Saturdays 10-lapper, said it was massively serious for those behind the wheel.
After the event, the 11 race cars were repaired by HDT Special Vehicles, their race and sponsorship stickers removed and were offered for sale by tender to authorised HDT Commodore dealers, with their odometers reading from 379-935km.
Perhaps surprisingly, they were not in particularly high demand at the time and sold for around $15-20,000, with the cars driven by Brock, Brabham and Johnson believed to have achieved the highest prices. The triple World Champions SV11 car reportedly made $18,500.
Above Details From http://www.uniquecarsmag.com.au/news-and-reviews/article/articleid/41865.aspx
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