It could have been 1984. Or 1974, for that matter.
It was the prodigal son’s return to The General. After a season in BMW M3s, and two racing – gasp – Ford Sierras, Peter Geoffrey Brock stepped out of his Mobil 1 VP Commodore returned to the official factory team in 1994.
It was a revelation for fans, and while he’d actually won a ‘heat’ at the season-opener in his VN at Amaroo in 1992 after switching back to a Commodore in 1991, Brock and the factory team brought nostalgia for the most dominant driver in touring car history – and with it the weight of expectations.
Yet there’s no such thing as instant success in motorsport, and the first half of the 1994 season saw zero wins for the revitalised HRT.
Third at Amaroo , again the first round of the season, was a positive start for Brock’s new Holden Racing Team home. Team-mate Tomas Mezera had outshone The King of The Mountain at Amaroo, but issues starting the second HRT VP – now ‘015’ instead of the previous ‘15’ to compliment the arrival of ‘05’ at Clayton.
Round 2 was at Sandown, where Brock had won the Sandown 500 seven consecutive times, but again Mezera proved the pace-setter for HRT. Brock qualified sixth, which meant his first appearance for HRT in the Peter Jackson Dash, but it was Mezera who was showing the better pace and qualified #015 on pole – but Skaife took both races, with Mezera second in the opener to Brock’s fifth.
Peter Perfect missed the Dash at Symmons Plains, too, but was second in the points standings behind Mark Skaife, before a breakthrough pole at Phillip Island that Brock – like Mezera at Sandown – didn’t convert to a win, again after the shakeup proffered by the Dash. The nine-times Bathurst winner was tantalisingly close, having finished second in Race 2 at Phillip Island behind 1993 champion, Glenn Seton, who bumped Brock down to third in the points.
Lakeside was up next, where Dick Johnson once won the first race – Brock lasting only metres before being fenced by Alan Jones’ Falcon – with a Holden Dealer Team podium in Race 2 with Larry Perkins leading home Jim Richards with their former co-driver Brock third.
Winton saw Seton dominate with victory in both races, including a Glenn Seton Motorsport one-two in the opener with Skaife splitting the two Falcons in Race 2.
Brock was still without a win – as was Mezera – with the reborn HRT, complete with money from Mobil 1 that came with Brock and was being schooled by Gibson Motorsport and Seton’s outfit. Perkin’s Lakeside success was perhaps more personal for Brock, seeing as the pair had worked together on the VN for Brock’s team.
It was Perkins, too, along with former Holden Dealer Team stalwart John Harvey – the latter whose #25 entry was commandeered by Brock to win the 1983 Great Race after the #05 VH Commodore failed – that helped establish Holden Special Vehicles with Tom Walkinshaw and John Crennan after the infamous 1987 HDT/Brock ‘split’ from GM-H.
HRT effectively became part of HSV and operated out of the same Clayton, Victoria headquarters, but apart from a 1990 Bathurst win – and solid second place at Mount Panorama the following year – it had failed to perform like a ‘works’ team and hadn’t won a single round of the Australian Touring Car Championship.
Brock and Mobil were intended to reverse those fortunes. Wayne Gardner left to set up his own team, with Coca-Cola backing and former Brock driver, Neil Crompton, in his new two-car team run by Alan Heaphy.
HRT recruited Jeff Grech, who wanted Brock and got him. Yet after a dozen races across six rounds of the 10-event championship, HRT hadn’t stood atop of the podium.
Then came Sydney Motorsport Park – or Eastern Creek Raceway as it was known when the field arrived on Thursday June 2 to set up for Round 7.
Brock wheeled out #05 and immediately set the pace around the four-year old track, where only six months earlier, Seton had won the second Triple Challenge at the Sydney venue.
Ten cars had set times below the lap record, with #05 at the top of the tree, but detractors suggested that Brock’s times wouldn’t carry over to race form as he’d be running soft tyres.
“I’ve think I’ve got some bad news for them – fellas, the car’s looking good,” Brock told the televisions crews after the Friday running.
Yet Seton couldn’t catch Brock – 20 years his senior – and nor could anyone else that weekend. In fact, after setting a 1:32.740 pole time, Brock led every lap of both races and was never headed.
It was the classic formula of Brock, Holden and victory that had fans gasping for more, a classic that delivered the first ATCC round victory for the factory team since its inception.
“It was a great day,” Brock recalled. “We had a tremendous amount of our sponsors, fortuitously, at the circuit … it was just a day I think when HRT realised they could win races and they were back with a vengeance.”
Almost 30 years since, Mobil 1, which came with Brock, is still on the bonnet of the pair of Clayton-based former factory team entries for the Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight – and again, Round 7 of the Championship.
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