| Peter Brock |
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Peter Geoffrey Brock endurance race nine times, the Sandown 500 touring car race nine times and the Australian Touring Car Championship three times. Brock's business activities included the Holden Dealer Team (HDT) that produced Brock's racing machines as well as a number of modified high-performance road versions of his racing cars. EARLY YEARS Brock was born in the that he bought for £ 5 ( A$ 10).2 His driving skill improved greatly at this point of his life because the car didn't have brakes (or a body, which was removed with his father's axe). He ended up trying to stop the car by sliding and anticipating the line. RACING CAREER During his early career Brock raced some "wild and woolly" creations including the famous blue 6-cylinder Holden-powered Austin A30 . One of his early successes was to become the 1970 Australian Rallycross champion. Brock rose to public attention in Touring Car Racing . Bathurst In 1969 he raced in the Bathurst 500 —as it was then known—Australia's most prestigious endurance road race and won it for the first time in 1972. Brock would win the event a total of nine times between 1972 and 1987, a feat that has not been equalled. His 1979 win was remarkable in that he claimed the flag by six laps, a record that (due to changes in race regulations introduced in the 1990s) will never be broken, and broke the circuit lap record on his final lap. In 32 starts at Bathurst he claimed pole position a record six times. His record at this race earned him the titles ''King of the Mountain'' and ''the Bradman of Bathurst''—after cricketer Don Bradman —although Brock himself cared little for the latter title. Sandown Along with his record at the Bathurst race, Brock also claimed victory in the Sandown 500 race nine times, including a string of seven consecutive wins. He won a total of 37 races during his career in the Australian Touring Car/V8 Supercar Championship , a record only eventually equalled by Mark Skaife in 2006 and beaten in 2007.3 Standing in community As the lead driver for the Holden Dealer Team in a succession of both 6- and 8-cylinder Holden Torana s and, later, V8 Commodores the smooth-talking clean-cut Brock became a household name that transcended motor racing as he emerged to be one of the best-known modern Australia and New Zealand racing drivers, spoken of with the same reverence as Sir Jack Brabham , Alan Jones and Jim Richards . Brock and the Holden Dealer Team worked in partnership, with full factory approval and assistance, to produce a number of high-performance modifications to the Commodores under existing CAMS Group C regulations from 1980 to 1988. Some of these were HDT " Homologation specials"—one step away from race cars. It was around this time that Brock began his run of six Bathurst 1000 wins in seven years, including his six-lap victory in the 1979 event. In 1986, Brock was crowned '' King Of Moomba '' by the Melbourne based festival committee.Craig Bellamy, Gordon Chisholm, Hilary Eriksen (17 Feb 2006) ''Moomba: A festival for the people.'': http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/rsrc/PDFs/Moomba/History%20of%20Moomba.pdf PDF pp 17-22 International racing |
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