A year on, the WTCC was as dead as Communism, but the privateers were still here, padding out the Sandown grid to a total of 34 entries. If you're counting at home, that's seven more than showed up for the race in 2018, although it's true that in today's world some of those entries would be back in the supporting Super2 or SuperUte series. That said, at least none of the teams in 1988 were running stupid retro liveries – Supercars is already a retro series, for chrissakes, what do they need retro liveries for?
Anyway, in 1988 the race was backed by Larry Perkins' old sponsor, Enzed Fluid Connectors, for the first and only time. If the 1987 Sandown enduro had had an "end of an era" vibe about it, the 1988 edition didn't yet feel like a rebirth – but still, it would be the last time the race would be held on the longer 3.878km "Grand Prix" version of the circuit, with its tight, twisting infield that bypassed the fast and dangerous Esses. It was a sign the racing establishment in Australia was about ready to start facing facts, accept that some things weren't working and begin the pruning.
People Who Race, and Serious Racers
The entry list for the 1988 Enzed 500 was basically a who's who of those serious about their preparations for Bathurst, although not all of them could necessarily back it up. There was the works Nissan team, Gibson Motorsport, with a pair of Skyline GTS-Rs for Glenn Seton/Anders Olofsson (#15), and George Fury/Mark Skaife (#30). Behind them were a couple of privateers in older DR30s, such as the #14 Netcomm car of old hands Murray Carter & Steve Masterton (although they failed to qualify), and the yellow #42 Hella car of Matt Wacker & Larry Kogge. There was even a a non-turbo #88 Gazelle (or
Of the BMWs, in stark contrast to the situation in Europe, there were only three. Two were works cars, the #05 Mobil M3 of Peter Brock, and the backup #7 for Neil Crompton and David "Skippy" Parsons. Brock was once again giving the aspiring youngster Crompo a chance to shine on the big stage, pairing him with a fast and safe pair of hands in Skippy Parsons – although, as with last year, their main qualification was probably still that they came cheap. And Brock had almost certainly kept the team's best stuff for himself, choosing as co-driver the man with whom he'd won two Bathursts back-to-back in 1978 and '79, "Gentleman" Jim Richards. I'd love to know whether they went with Brock's Schnitzer setup or Richo's softer, more forgiving Frank Gardner settings, but honestly, as far as I can tell it's a coin toss – whether Brock would listen to what you were trying to tell him or stubbornly do things his own way depended on which day it was, and Richo was probably too easygoing to force the issue.
(The third BMW on the grid was the #87 Sommariva Concrete 635 CSi, which was actually Richo's ATCC-winning car from 1985. It was now owned and driven by Joe Sommariva, with co-driving duties from Darrel Belsky.)
Toyota Team Australia had sent along three cars to contest Class C, a single AE86 Sprinter coupé and two front-wheel drive FX-GT hatchbacks. They were backed up by the privateer AE86 of Bryan Bate Motors, and of course, Bob Holden's long-serving AE86 hatch. The only possible threat to a Toyota victory in the tiddler class was the #86 Gemspares Isuzu Gemini ZZ of Daryl Hendrick & John White, and it wasn't much of a threat at that.
Of the new Walkinshaw Commodores, there were plenty. No fewer than nine players had upgraded to the new bodykit and fuel-injected V8, spearheaded by the two works cars of Holden Special Vehicles. The #10 of team leader Larry Perkins (and co-driver, 1967 F1 World Champion Denny Hulme) was a new car, PE 005, built especially for the 1988 endurance season; the #11, shared by TWR regular Jeff Allam and 1985 Bathurst-winner Armin Hahne, was Larry's ATCC car (PE 004) upgraded to Walkinshaw spec.
Besides the works cars, two other Walkies on the grid were Perkins-built. The first was the powder-blue Everlast entry of Bill O'Brien, who was still racing PE 003, the very first customer car Perkins had ever built. "I needed two of those injected engines plus gearboxes and other trick parts," O'Brien told Australian Muscle Car #98, "and I soon worked out that I had spent over half a million in less than a year!" To help pay the bills, O'Brien accepted an offer from wealthy prestige car dealer Ray Lintott to buy a half-share of the car for Bathurst, bedding down their partnership in the crucible of Sandown.
The other Perkins car belonged to Tony Noske, owner-driver of the Kalari Transport outfit. He'd upgraded to a brand-new car, chassis PE 006, having sold off PE 001 to fund the transfer. PE 001, you'll recall, had started life as Perkins' 1987 ATCC car in Enzed colours; after racing it through the 1988 sprint season, Noske had advertised it in Auto Action as a bare shell, eventually selling it to a Melbourne wrecker who turned it back into a road car! It seems the wrecker had a written-off VK "Blue Meanie" in his possession, which he gutted of the running gear and installed into PE 001, turning it into a road-going VK Group A replica. The line between high-performance road car and racing car was reeeal fuzzy back then.
There was also the Beaurepaires Walky of Chris Lambden, which was actually HDT 16 – yes, the car in which Peter Brock had won his last Bathurst. Peter was too broke to put it on a museum plinth, so it had been sold off to fund his BMW campaign. Also present was the well-remembered Peter McLeod Yellow Pages car, which was actually nearing the end of its racing life. It had started out as a rental car bought at auction (yes, really), and McLeod had raced it as a VK in 1985, a VK Group A in '86, a VL in '87 and now a VL Walkinshaw in '88 – the car had changed its panels like socks. At least both these cars looked the goods, both Lambden's Bearepaires and McLeod's Yellow Pages liveries looking absolutely sumptuous.
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| McLeod's Yellow Pages Walky, pictured here at Bathurst. |
And of course, there were the Ford Sierras. Twelve months ago this race had seen the RS500's Aussie debut, where it had shown promising speed but precious little endurance. Only four had shown up for the race, and none had made the finish (two hadn't even made the start!). But twelve months had passed between that day and this: now most of the kinks were ironed out, it was the only game in town.
The Ford spearhead was of course the #17 of Dick Johnson & John Bowe, back from humiliating the Europeans and driving a brand-new car built for the enduros (DJR4; chassis DJR3 was still on the boat back from England). The #18, which had been entrusted to open-wheel star Alf Costanzo and former Toyota leading man John Smith, was actually DJR1, Dick's right-hand drive car from 1987, which had started life as an ordinary RS Cosworth. Backing them up, Tony Longhurst had put an attractive yellow Benson & Hedges livery on TLR1 to replace the Freeport colours he'd worn in the ATCC, while Colin Bond had brought along two cars. He'd planned to share his new car, CXT1, with 1980 F1 World Champion and sometime Alfa Romeo teammate Alan Jones, but once again the new car proved troublesome and it split a cylinder bore in practice. It couldn't make the start, which left the Miedecke-built rent-a-car (MM1) to former Miedecke team drivers John Giddings and Bruce Stewart, who'd have to fly the flag for Caltex alone. Andrew Miedecke himself would be driving MM3, the Sierra built to replace the one Don Smith had destroyed in practice here last year, now dressed in a minimal #8 Gulliver's Travels livery; he'd be taking relief from old partner Andrew Bagnall. Miedecke Motorsport's status as the Ford "B-team" was rapidly eroding, however, with all these other Sierra runners starting to get results.
Then there was Allan Moffat and his #9 ANZ entry.
Cloud #9
One of the most fascinating aspects of the 1988 season was how Moffat had done the impossible and wrangled a customer car out of Rudi Eggenberger, head of Eggenberger Motorsport, Ford of Europe's official factory team. Exactly how he did it is a matter of conjecture, but it probably boiled down to two things. Firstly, his international contacts: the Ford Motor Company had long been in the habit of rotating executives through Australia and the rest of the world to give them a nice broad experience base before bringing them back to Detroit, so it's likely some of Rudi's paymasters in Cologne had known Moffat when he was part of the Ford works team in Australia in the 1970s, and applied some pressure on his behalf. The other factor was that in the last couple of years Moffat had struck up a firm friendship with Will Bailey, boss of the ANZ bank, who'd become Allan Moffat Racing's main sponsor. That had given him unusually deep pockets – which were needed, because the car was rumoured to have cost $300,000.
Having now read Moffat's book, Climbing The Mountain, I think we can put a few of the rumours to bed. The price tag above seems to be accurate, but for that money it seems he got a new car built especially to race in Australia, not a refurbished Texaco car, which is why it didn't show up until the Wanneroo round of the ATCC.
It took a lot of persuasion. Undoubtedly, Rudi was somewhat peeved with Australia. And he didn’t build customer cars anyway. His job was to work with Ford to win championships. But I wore him down and he agreed to make me a car. From start to finish it was only a couple of months but it was a long-enough delay that I missed the first three rounds of the 1988 ATCC. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The MountainThat might explain another mystery about the car, that nobody seems to know its chassis number. Eggenberger ended up having two different systems for numbering his cars, either a five-digit number for his own cars (the #1 ETCC car from 1988, for example, was chassis 99269), or "EGMO x/xx" for customer cars. Here the EGMO stood for "Eggenberger Motorsport," with the first X standing for a sequential number, and the others for the year. So the second Moffat ANZ car that would come along in a year or so would be EGMO 7/89, meaning the seventh car built in 1989.
The first Moffat car, however, is a complete mystery, with no chassis number recorded anywhere I can find. It's possible that, as the very first customer car he ever built, Rudi simply hadn't yet decided what his customer numbering system would be. It's tempting to unofficially dub it EGMO 1/88, but even that's slightly up in the air, as one rumour suggests Eggenberger also built a car for a Japanese team that year, which might've come before Moffat's, though I haven't found out who the team allegedly was. Either way, AMR-005 seems like another possibility (AMRs 001 to 004 were the Peter Stuyvesant Mazdas), but that seems unfair to Rudi. In the end, we'll probably have to stick to convention: each of the ANZ Sierras only ever raced with a single number on the doors, so this one's usually just referred to as the #9.
In the ATCC, however, the #9 had proved less than Moffat had hoped for, as demonstrated by the outcome of the Adelaide round – a race where Moffat was not only beaten by the Dick Johnson winning machines, but lapped.
I'd been hugely impressed with the progressive power of the Sierra, loved the way it pointed, but couldn't understand why in qualifying I was 1.5 seconds off Johnson's car. This was an Eggenberger machine, a world-championship contender. It looked good, in fact great, and it was beautifully engineered. My expectation, not unreasonably, was that I'd be on the pace right out of the box – even against people who had had more time with their cars. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The MountainThat prompted a re-think in his workshop on Malvern Road, Toorak, followed by a repeat of Dick Johnson's expedition to Europe to complain to the manufacturer. This time, however – either because Rudi was less of a crime boss than Andy Rouse, or because Moffat was rather a better diplomat than Johnson – the outcome was very different.
I was thinking deeply about all this. I'd bought a customer car from a works team. What had I expected to happen? The realisation was blindingly obvious and a real kick in the tail.
Of course I wouldn't get works-car treatment. I'd get a car that was well-built, bulletproof and not likely to cause a "warranty" complaint. But I wouldn’t get a car that could win.
I was on a plane to Switzerland to confront the gnome in his home. Even though I had an appointment, Rudi kept me waiting a mighty long time. If you ever want to feel like a total inconvenience, just turn up in Switzerland with a complaint.
I have to say the meeting was convivial. I left not with a box of parts or a blueprint of how to rebuild the turbocharger. I left with a computer chip.
A new reality was confronting me. I was an analogue man in a digital world. While I'd been used to manually tuning my cars, and I'd even been introduced to the early concept of engine mapping, this whole process of plugging in a Pac-Man game to alter performance was foreign to me.
I came through Customs feeling no compulsion to declare what I was carrying in my briefcase. I installed it in my Sierra, and won the 1988 Sandown 500. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The Mountain
Qualifying
Without Castrol stumping up the sponsorship dollars there was no "Castrol Chargers" or any other imitation of the Bathurst top-ten shootout, just a trio of 30-minute qualifying sessions to settle the order on the grid. From those sessions, Dick Johnson ultimately took pole for the second year in a row, stopping the clocks at 1:46.94, a second faster than Longhurst – an average one-lap speed of 130.5 km/h. The Nissans looked promising also, Seton putting his GTS-R 3rd on the grid despite having rolled it at The Chase at its Bathurst press launch, while the HSV Commodores lined up 6th and 9th.
Given this was the final year cars would run on the 3.9km layout, it was an opportunity to take stock of how pole times had changed over the years. In 1984, the first year of this layout, George Fury had taken pole in his turbocharged Nissan Bluebird with a time of 1:46.2, an average of 131.5 km/h. Given that was for the older Group C regs, though, it's not especially representative – Fury's engine was 200cc smaller than Johnson's, but had the advantage of an aggressive aero kit and two extra inches of rubber at each corner. Apples and oranges.
The first meaningful data comes with Peter Brock's pole in 1985, the first year of the Group A regs, achieved in a virtually-stock VK Commodore – 1:52.3, or 124.3 km/h. That was a hefty 6.1 seconds and 7.2km/h slower than the Bluebird, so this could be regarded as the natural pace of a Group A car before the evo specials arrived. The following year, 1986, it had fallen to Brock again in the updated VK SS Group A, at 1:49.84 – a solid two-and-a-half second improvement on '85. 1987's pole had been almost as big a jump, Johnson claiming the top spot with a 1:47.59, or two-and-a-quarter seconds better than Brock in the first hit out for the "big turbo" RS500. At only 0.65 seconds faster, 1988 had brought the smallest year-on-year improvement of the Group A era, although that was explainable by the fact that it was the first time nobody had brought a major new homologation package to the track – Johnson was running more or less the same Sierra package he'd debuted the year before, and probably running no more qualifying boost than he had then. The difference this year was race boost, which was sure to be much higher than last year: that's what Johnson and Eggenberger's expensive new computer chips had bought, and it remained to be seen whose would do the business over 500km.
Still, chalk up another all-time track record to George Fury. We hear all about his '84 Bathurst pole, but no-one ever seems to mention the Sandown pole that came before it.
Race Day
Sadly, unlike the '87 edition, the full telecast of the 1988 Enzed 500 doesn't seem to be on YouTube, just a 45-minute highlight reel. It's harder to tease out the way the race unfolded when five-sixths of the broadcast is missing, but then again Sandown '88 wasn't as tense or hard-fought as '87. The Sierras were here, and they were sorted, and they'd cast everything else into the shade. The only question was whether they could last 500km at a pace that could win.
The race got off to a bustling start, with lots of revs and tyre smoke filling the air in front of the grandstands as the field streamed away. Sandown is always a race of high attrition, however, and the green bottles started falling immediately. From 2nd on the grid, Tony Longhurst made a very slow start and limped around his first lap to go straight back to the pits, the team mechanics (in smart yellow B&H uniforms) swarming to check the rear axles. He'd been just a tad too aggressive with his start and broken a driveshaft, which would have to be replaced before he could continue. His race had ended literally as soon as it began.
On the other side of the circuit, everyone behaved themselves through the first series of corners, Johnson leading but chased hard by Miedecke's plain white Sierra, Seton's Nissan, Allam's HSV Commodore, the other HSV Commodore of Perkins, the second Nissan of Fury, and Moffat's ANZ Sierra. Lap 2 started with the same calm, determined ferocity, but it was here we had the first proper retirement of the race, a Toyota – the #29 AE86 Sprinter of Drew Price & John Faulkner, so a works Toyota, at that! That was a sure sign this race wasn't going to come easily, and indeed, on the same lap, Glenn Seton was seen touring very slowly up the back straight in his Skyline, having broken the gearbox, probably off the start. Nobody realised it then, but that had been Glenn Seton's final race lap in a Nissan.
It took a while before the TV commentators found out what had gone wrong, however. The broadcast team for this race included old hands Peter Gee (good), Will Hagon (excellent), and a guest in the form of one of the most colourful figures in Aussie motorsport history, "Captain" Peter Janson. This eccentric, deerstalker-wearing privateer had been responsible for bringing Larry Perkins back into the sport, giving him a co-drive after he returned from that unsuccessful tilt at Formula 1. Four years at the Mountain had earned them a 3rd, two 2nd's and a DNF before Peter Brock headhunted Perkins for the Holden Dealer Team, kicking his career into high gear. That was the substance of Janson's time in touring cars, but what he was remembered for was the style. It wasn't just the parties, which were legendary in their own right: it was little things like, when sponsored by Cadbury-Schweppes, he'd slowed down on parade laps to toss free samples to the crowd, in defiance of the safety regs. Then, when sponsored by NGK spark plugs, he'd sidestepped a rule that kept their logo off the car by legally changing his name to NGK Janson – hey, the rules required that you display the drivers' names...
So a larrikin like Janson was a welcome addition to the commentary team, but new pitlane mike-man John Thompson was rather more of disappointment. He seemed uncomfortable with the job, and forgot that with racing drivers you can't just wait for them to spill the beans, you've got to really squeeze it out of them!
Will Hagon: Down in the pits, let's hear from Glenn Seton as to what did happen to car #15.
John Thompson: I've got Glenn Seton with me, who's out of the race after just 3 laps, he was lying 3rd and third-fastest. Glenn, you must be dreadfully disappointed?
Glenn Seton: Oh, it's very disappointing. This sort of thing is just part of the game in motorsport – these things happen. The car’s still on a development programme, and hopefully we'll fix it for Bathurst.
John Thompson: Good luck at Bathurst, Glenn.
Will Hagon: Well we didn't find out what happened, and I'm not surprised he's disappointed!
Peter Janson: I don't think he wanted to tell us!After 14 laps it was a comfortable DJR 1-2, Dick ahead of Costanzo, with Allan Moffat well in the shade. But it was early days yet. From 7th on the grid, Moffat had calmly but firmly dealt with George Fury, Larry Perkins and Jeff Allam to be 3rd by lap 3. Costanzo had worked his way up since then, but Moffat was too wise to fight him this early in the game. And behind them more cars were falling by the wayside: the privateer #91 Bryan Bate Motors Corolla and Lawrie Nelson's #28 Capri Components Mustang had already dropped out, while lap 16 saw the Giddings/Stewart Caltex Sierra overheat and stop.
And then on lap 24, it struck Dick Johnson as well, who slowed on the long climb up the back straight and so lost the lead to Moffat, who didn't slow down a jot. Johnson didn't fall away, hanging on to the back of Moffat, but it was clear whatever big advantage he'd held in the opening laps was gone. I have to admit, the first time I watched the replay I thought Johnson had simply turned down the boost: in a turbo car, the way to win an enduro was to turn up the wick and put in some blistering laps early on, then back off when everyone started to chase you, giving them the unenviable choice of breaking their cars trying to close the gap or just accepting their position and circulating behind you. Bill Tuckey had dubbed this the "Brock Crush," because it was exactly what Peter used to do at Bathurst, even in his non-turbo Commodores and Toranas. Now, I'd thought, it looked like Dick had used up whatever early firepower he'd planned on using and it was time to do the sensible thing and run the bulk of the race a little bit slower than everyone else – which Moffat would welcome, because his Eggenberger car was built to go precisely this distance, and wouldn't need to slow down one iota.
But no, that lap Johnson pitted and the mechanics lifted the bonnet tor reveal a water reservoir steaming and bubbling over, although whether that was the cause or merely a symptom of the pit stop was impossible to know. Something always seemed to curse Johnson at Sandown, a race he'd never won, and never would win under Group A regulations.
John Thompson: Dick Johnson, you must be dreadfully disappointed. An overheating problem with the Sierra?A bit later, Thompson reappeared with another DJR team member by his side.
Dick Johnson: Mate, the race is nowhere near finished yet, pal. We can pick that up.
John Thompson: What sort of problem is it?
Dick Johnson: I dunno, it's just started missing and carrying on about 15 laps ago. I tried to stay out there, but it got bad enough that I had to stop because the thing was stopping on me. It's just obviously getting water on the electrics. I dunno where it's leaking from.
John Thompson: Thanks, Dick.
John Thompson: We've got Neal Lowe with us, Dick Johnson's team manager. Neal, what was the problem with Dick's car?Dick rejoined, but he'd lost a lot of time and was well behind the pack, circulating back in 17th.
Neal Lowe: Well we're not really sure. It started off by misfiring a little on one corner just entering the straight. We brought it in to have a look, and when you turn these turbo cars off from a race speed they tend to boil over. So whether we've fixed the problem or not, we're not really sure. But we filled it up with water, changed the fuel pump over and away it goes. Seems okay at the moment.
Rubbing in salt, the #18 car of Alf Constanzo was in not too long after with rear axle problems (Janson guessed it was the diff) – close enough that the team could treat it like a scheduled stop, putting John Smith behind the wheel, but early enough to throw a wrench in their pit strategy for the day. The team took their time servicing it, giving the windscreen a good clean and refuelling without undue haste, as the mechanics at the rear worked frantically to get the axle fixed.The #18 rejoined as well, but like the boss it was well behind the lead.
They were still in better shape than some. Daryl Hendrick's #86 Gemspares Gemini had already dropped out, while Peter McLeod's stunning Yellow Pages Commodore had visited the pits at the end of lap 1, rejoined to circulate with the leaders (a lap down), before stopping out on the circuit and being abandoned. A similar fate befell other Commodore runners, with no chequered flag on the horizon for Terry Finnigan (head gasket), Chris Lambden (oil leak) or later, Bill O'Brien (reasons unknown).
Not that the race leaders were getting a clear run either. On lap 48 Moffat brought the ANZ car in, and in a brisk 37-second stop the team re-tyred and refuelled it and put Gregg Hansford in the driver's seat for the lunchtime shift. Unfortunately, there'd been a problem with the dry-break fuel system – these cars didn't have screw-on filler caps, just a spring-loaded seal that could be pushed open by a refuelling hose and then spring back into place when it was removed. A problem with the O-ring meant this one hadn't sprung back into place properly, so when it returned to the track the car was seen gushing fuel in right-hand turns. Amazingly, Peter Janson told the viewers at home, "That's not dangerous, so they'll just let him go on that" – which made us wonder what planet he lived on, because it was, and they didn't. Within a lap Hansford was given a mechanical black flag and ordered to bring it back to the pits, so on lap 51 Hansford returned to pit lane, had the filler seen to and rejoined with the kind of ferocious haste that comes from being annoyed with yourself.
And while that was going on, Larry Perkins had brought the #10 Commodore in to hand over to Denny Hulme, who gave it a bootful and slid out of his pit box sideways, rejoining 3rd. The order thus had George Fury (who had yet to pit) leading for Nissan, Hulme 2nd, Hansford 3rd and Hahne 4th, putting us in with a good chance of seeing the new Walkinshaw Commodores lead a race for the very first time!
In a rare sign of trouble for the BMWs, on lap 42 Jim Richards started releasing big gusts of smoke from under his #05 M3 – not a constant flow, just at various points around the circuit. Janson quickly spotted that, "he's getting it when on surge" – the same principle that will make you spill your drink in a game of corners – "so it might be the top filler tank, and she's coming over the side and onto the manifold." Three laps later the car was in the pits with the bonnet up, so whatever was going wrong was bad, which was confirmed during Hansford's second unscheduled stop – we caught a glimpse of the Mobil mechanics pushing the #05 BMW into the back of the garage. That didn't necessarily mean whatever had gone wrong was terminal, but it did mean Brock was out of contention for the race he'd won nine times (including seven in a row) in his stellar career. Shortly after, John Thompson was talking to Graeme "Mort" Brown, Brock's team manager.
John Thompson: I've got Graeme Brown with me, the Brock team manager. Graeme, you've had a few problems with the Brock car, I believe an oil filter's split, and Brock's gone out in the second car, is that right?A team boss with a long history of cross-entry shenanigans at it again. I'll let you make up your own mind about it, but as with Phil Brock before him, Neil Crompton never got to drive. The #7 car suffered an engine failure on lap 59 with Brock at the wheel – Parsons had started it, Brock killed it, and Crompo was left kicking his heels on the sidelines. Lap 57 had already seen the #11 HSV Commodore stop with a broken axle, so the pond was starting to get awfully short of the big fish. If you could keep going – like Dick Johnson, Allan Moffat and George Fury – you stood a good chance of picking up a result even if you were short of outright speed.
Graeme Brown: That's correct, yes. When the filter split, Jimmy said it felt like the car lost some power, so we didn't think it had a very long life even after we replaced the filter. So to give the second car a bit more of a chance we've put Peter in it, and we've put Dave Parsons into Peter's car.
Shortly after, Fury finally pitted to hand over to Mark Skaife, 21 years old and straining at the leash. While he waited for Fred Gibson to give him the go signal, Denny Hulme swept through to take the race lead – so for the first time ever, a Walkinshaw Commodore was leading a race! Sadly however, Skaife didn't get a chance to dispute the lead with Perkins, as on lap 94 the #30 Skyline snapped a propshaft and retired.
That was the last of the retirements, as all the other drivers seemingly got the message and drove gingerly to the finish. All except one – Hansford brought the ANZ Sierra in for his scheduled stop (or as scheduled as it could be given the amount of fuel it had thrown overboard in the early laps) and handed it back to the boss. Moffat climbed aboard for the run to the flag and zoomed out of pit lane like a man on a mission. His cause was helped when Hulme locked up the rear brakes and tipped himself into a spin at the end of the front straight, losing some crucial time. Whether it would've made a difference in the end is debatable as the Moffat Sierra was just faster, reeling him in and passing for the lead with so little drama it didn't even make it into the YouTube highlight reel (or maybe it happened when Hulme pitted to hand it back to Perkins). Although it's not quite true that Moffat and Hansford took the lead and then held it except for the pit stops, it is true that it had been a fairly serene and untroubled run for the ageing Ford hero.
Dick Johnson meanwhile had made good on his promise that it wasn't over yet, and with five laps to go he was back up to 3rd pace. Unfortunately, with four laps to go he ran into problems yet again, as Moffat came up and zoomed past between Turns 2 and 3, putting him a lap down. Given how sick the car was, that might've been a blessing in disguise – it didn't look like the car had four laps of life left in it! By then Dick had a five-lap cushion over the 4th-placed Graham Moore, at the wheel of the #26 Kalari Transport Commodore owned by Tony Noske, but the Moore was running at full pelt and Dick wasn't.
With the finish virtually in sight, the #17 dived into the pits and ignited a frenzy of activity from the mechanics. Moore was 5 laps behind and Moffat was only 3 from the flag. If they retired the car it was all over, but if they kept it running – just running, it didn't have to be fast – they were virtually assured of a podium finish. With steam whooshing from the engine, it didn't look good, but they pulled out every trick they had and it wasn't until Moffat came around to complete his final lap that we realised what they had in mind. As Moffat swept imperiously down the front straight to greet the chequered flag, the #17 Shell Sierra was coaxed back to life and limped into the pit exit road, still bleeding steam, and crawled slowly, slowly, toward the finish line. Down the main straight beside him roared Larry Perkins in the #10 HSV Commodore, the Walky taking its first podium finish, and still the dying Sierra limped on. One final push from the mechanics and it trickled the final couple of hundred metres on the starter motor, crossing the finish line and officially chalking up 3rd place in the 1988 Enzed 500! Noske & Moore protested of course, but the result was upheld.
The final results showed Allan Moffat and Gregg Hansford had won the 1988 Enzed 500 in 4 hours, 4 minutes and 11.26 seconds. 2nd was Larry Perkins and Denny Hulme in the #10 HSV Commodore, with 3rd – somewhat controversially – going to Dick Johnson and John Bowe in the #17 Shell Sierra. The Class B winners were Brock/Richards/Parsons in the #05 Mobil BMW M3, four laps behind Moffat and 7th outright, but it was virtually by default as the only other car in their class had been their #7 sister car, which had failed to finish. Class C had fallen to the #88 Sala/Burbidge Nissan Gazelle, 20 laps down, after all the Toyotas dropped out with mechanical dramas. The exception was the #13 Bob Holden Motors AE86 Corolla, which was still running at the finish, but with just 81 laps on the board it hadn't covered enough distance to be classified. Only 12 of the 32 starters had actually earned a result.
So it had been a bruising race, but one car and its drivers had proven more than enough to see off the competition. The post-race interview showed why Allan Moffat was able to bring together such fine machinery and talent – he worked that much harder to give his sponsors good value.
Peter Gee: Allan, congratulations. You must have some vintage champagne – well it's become vintage, it's been sitting in the fridge so long, waiting for this moment?As noted, it was the sixth Sandown endurance victory for Moffat, having won it in 1969 (Falcon GT-HO), 1970 (GT-HO Phase II), 1974 (XB GT), 1982 and 1983 (Mazda RX-7). For the record, his last win first across the line had been the February race on the streets of Wellington, just last year. (True, he and John Harvey had won the Monza WTCC round since then, but that had come after the cars ahead of them were disqualified.) His last win with his own team had been the 1984 Valvoline 250 at Oran Park, a whopping 1,484 days ago, which coincidentally had also come with Gregg Hansford co-driving. Although it would've been the work of a pessimist to guess it at the time, it was also his final win on Australian soil, the final flourish for one of the most splendid careers in the business. But this one was all the sweeter because it was not the result you would have predicted after qualifying. Motor racing can be funny like that.
Allan Moffat: Well I have to say, I was thinking on the last lap, the last time we had such a nice victory [with his ANZ-branded baseball cap on] was when we launched our Trans-Am Mustang, and it was a very hard drive that day, it was a hard drive today!
Peter Gee: How long has it been since you've taken the chequered flag, first across the line?
Allan Moffat: It's the first win for our Eggenberger Sierra, and I'm delighted about that. It's taken a while, but all things come to those who wait. And I have to thank my crew for working so hard on the car, and Rudi Eggenberger for supplying us with a great car in the first place. And I was just the lucky fella behind the wheel today.
Peter Gee: You've won this race six times now, how does this one compare?
Allan Moffat: Is it? Well I'd like to thank Gregg, I couldn't have done it without him. Held the car together, when I got back in it I didn't even know I'd been out of it, he didn't hurt it at all. He kept the station for me, and the luck of the break with the pit stops and we came through. I am delighted. And I have to thank Dunlop for great tyres as well, we went all the way [switches to Dunlop cap] on Dunlop today.
Peter Gee: You're changing hats quite a bit here Allan!
Allan Moffat: These people helped me a lot!
Peter Gee: Gregg, what sort of instructions did he give you when you took over?
Gregg Hansford: Ah, just to bring the car back in one piece, and go as fast as I could without being too dangerous. I think I did what he asked me to do, and uh, the result was there.
Allan Moffat: He did a great job. I'm very happy and looking forward to Bathurst. If you can't do five-hundred you can't do a thousand.
Peter Gee: Did anything go wrong today?
Allan Moffat: Oh, I made a few mistakes myself, but I... Oh yes, one thing did go wrong! The fuel filler, rubber ring broke in the pit stop, but, uh that won't happen again.
Peter Gee: Well you're really looking forward to October the 2nd now?
Allan Moffat: I am. We've had to suffer some losses throughout the season, the car was never really built as a sprint car. And we had a strategic plan, and I'm happy to say with the support of ANZ we were able to stick to that. They stuck with me, and we got the result.
Peter Gee: Allan, fabulous performance and I think the crowd here are very pleased to see Allan Moffat back, number one. Gregg Hansford as well, well done this afternoon.
[Dick] took pole at Sandown and all I could muster was 7th. I was ready to spit chips.
But Rudi hadn't let me down. He'd given me a fast car that was bulletproof for 500 kilometres. Gregg and I steadily worked our way through the field and took over the lead at the quarter-distance, losing it only during the pit stops. There's an old adage: "He who wins Sandown never wins Bathurst." I’d proved that wrong as early as 1970 and, standing on the victory dais at Sandown, I was pretty certain the curse would not be on me this year. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The Mountain
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