6 May: Toying With His Rivals

And now for something completely different.

Colin Bond demonstrating proper cornering technique, Amaroo Park, 1990.

Can Someone Turn the Sun Down?

May in Australia is supposed to be the final month of autumn, but there was precious little evidence of that as the Group A circus assembled for Round 5 of the championship. The venue this time was the storied Lakeside International Raceway, a swooping up-&-down rollercoaster built on the banks of Lake Kurwongbah, less than an hour from the Queensland capital of Brisbane. And for the third race in a row, the weather was unseasonably, implausibly hot – you know the temperature was out of hand when even the banana-benders started complaining. And that fact was getting people in certain garages up and down pit lane a bit hot under the collar, too.

In theory Lakeside favoured experience – many of the corners were blind, and the key to a good lap was the bumps; you had to know where to position the car to make the most of them. As a local boy who'd cycled out to meetings at this track when he was just a teenager, won his first-ever start here before he was 20, and clinched his first championship after a hammer-and-tongs battle with Peter Brock nearly fifteen years later, Dick Johnson should've been in the box seat for this one. The highly-partisan Brisbane crowd had come to see no-one else. But today Dick had the result at Winton to think about, where his Dunlop tyres had struggled in the heat and left him pootling around roughly nowhere. The almost-as-warm Phillip Island race had gone his way, true, but only because Dunlop had brewed up some special rubber just for that event.

That wasn't going to happen at Lakeside. A glorified club circuit outside Bris Vegas was a tad rustic for a big international, especially when it wouldn't help with their major racing commitments overseas. What made that especially awkward was that all last year's data had to be junked as well. In the twelve months since they'd last raced here, Lakeside had been resurfaced, and in Friday practice the new tarmac proved much smoother and grippier than last year. All that extra grip (plus the slightly heavier cars this year) meant, in the course of a lap, the tyres were being squashed and stretched and generally deformed under load more than ever before. And as any squash player could tell you, that could only lead to heat, lots of heat. In practice, the drivers found any stint longer than a few laps and even the toughest tyre would turn to jelly.

The problem was, the rules for 1990 forced everyone to make their tyre choice on Saturday and then complete both qualifying and the race on them – on a circuit where track position is everything, because the narrow tarmac and endless sequence of corners make passing extremely difficult. Drivers faced the unenviable choice of fitting harder compounds, qualifying badly and then just hoping the guys ahead of them would have to stop... or fitting softer compounds, qualifying at the front, and then trying to build a gap before their tyres melted and they'd have to come in.

With no data and everyone being very cagey about strategy, it was virtually a coin toss. In the end, though, nearly everyone with a stake in the championship opted for softer rubber and accepted the inevitability of a pit stop, probably on the logic that you ended up racing where you qualified. Catching up is one thing, after all, passing is quite another; better to be slipping and sliding and holding everyone up, than starting somewhere behind and unable to find a way past (and slipping and sliding anyway). Only three drivers chose to spit in the face of convention, and significantly, two of them had no skin in the championship – Peter Brock, Colin Bond and Win Percy.

In another encouraging sign for the Holden Racing Team, Percy's #16 Walkinshaw had been third-fastest in Thursday practice, but the Pom deliberately opted for harder rubber for the business end of the weekend. That left him only 12th in qualifying, but he was unrepentant. "It's reflected in our qualifying times," he said, "but I'd be surprised if the Sierras don't stop. I'd rather be the odd one out than go with the norm."

Peter Perfect also had two decades' worth of experience to call upon at Lakeside, and a distant shot at the championship if he made the right call. Unfortunately, like Bond and Percy, he probably had nothing to lose. The last time his Bridgestones had worked was in the chill of Tasmania, way back at Symmons Plains, so he might as well bolt on a set of wooden-hards for today and see how it all came out in the wash. The hot weather gave him no real chance anyway.

And Colin Bond? Well, like Brock and Johnson, he too had been racing at Lakeside since before mankind kicked the Moon, but by now he was clearly a spent force. He hadn't won a championship race in over a decade, and he was running on wildcard Toyo tyres anyway. His hand had probably been forced on the no-stop strategy, actually, because he likely didn't have a set of tyres in the right compound to spare anyway. Nobody it seems had bothered to keep a stopwatch on him during practice, and take notice of his remarkably consistent laptimes, even as he stayed out for long fifteen- to twenty-lap stints...

Qualy Capers

Tony Longhurst had walked off with the honours in Saturday's timed practice session, creasing the tarmac with a scorching 53.71-second pole lap. That wasn't too surprising to those in the know: Longhurst and his team had apparently done significant testing here in the lead-up, and Tony had been in this car (TLR2) for eighteen months and had it so well-sorted now that it might even have taken Johnson's mantle as the fastest in the world. Certainly it hadn't appeared to lack pace compared to DJR5, but it's hard to be sure – good rubber covers a multitude of sins, and the Yokohamas'd had a definite edge this year.

On that level at least, Johnson must've been relieved that for once the Yokohama teams were struggling as much as he was. In front of a home crowd Dick had qualified in a respectable 53.76, only five-hundredths of a second slower than Tony. These two were in a class of their own however, because the first of the sidekicks (Alan Jones) was two tenths behind on a 53.97, while the other (John Bowe) was only three-hundredths behind that with a 54-dead. This kind of 1-3/2-4 grid hinted that both teams had taken an each-way bet on strategy, putting their prime drivers on a slightly softer compound and their backups on harder ones. Whether they would be hard enough, we would have to see.

Behind in 5th was Gregg Hansford in Allan Moffat's ANZ Sierra, while 6th and 8th were the Nissan twins Richards and Skaife, another team qualifying line astern. The interloper between them was Larry Perkins, who'd once again put the #11 Walky up where it shouldn't have been – 54.39 seconds was miles faster than a Commodore should've been on a circuit like this. After that we had Colin Bond (9th), Glenn Seton (10th), Mark Gibbs in the GIO Walky (11th), and then the aforementioned Win Percy, whose 54.65 laptime was a full second off Longhurst's pole. Last of the real pros were Peter Brock in 13th and teammate Andrew Miedecke in 14th, whose 55.11 flying lap was the last of the respectable times. Below this, lap times fell off a cliff.

Most of the second half of the grid were in outdated or small-class cars, of course, but poor John Smith in the factory Toyota Supra didn't even have that for an excuse. This full-time professional, with more than a decade's experience and seat time in Formula Holden and sports cars, had to suffer his state-of-the-art Supra Turbo being beaten to 15th on the grid by Chris Lambden in the privateer Beaurepaires Skyline – a gentleman driver, albeit a very dedicated one.

Behind them we had Kevin Waldock's Playscape Sierra, and then the real weekenders started, such as Steve Reed in the trusty Lansvale Smash Repairs VL (not yet updated to Walky spec). At this point it might do to give some very unfamiliar names at the murky end of the grid a shout-out: one of them  was Mike Twigden, a former New Zealand Formula Ford driver who was at the wheel of a BMW 323i. This combination would show up at Bathurst later in the year as part of Kiwi Brian Bolwell's outfit, a team which had been racing this car (one presumes it's the same car) since at least Sandown '86. It seems like a reasonable inference that Bolwell had hired young Twigden to be his Bathurst co-driver and had entered him in this ATCC round to ensure he was blooded before the big day, which just leaves a question mark over the car itself: mysteriously, Bolwell was racing a 3-series BMW that wasn't an M3. Frank Gardner's team had turned a half-finished 325i into an M3 mid-build, so it wasn't like it was a difficult conversion, and the Bavarians hadn't exactly been shy about providing support where it was wanted. So, why hadn't this car been upgraded to an M3? Lack of funds? Lack of interest? Some other priority in his native New Zealand? If you know something, hit up that comment box at the bottom. Inquiring minds need to know.

Johnson putting a lap on Twigden during the race.

The other unfamiliar name was one Maurice Pickering, who qualified his Commodore in 59.73 seconds – just enough to put him alongside John Faulkner's 1.6-litre Corolla. Googling his name revealed more than Twigden and Bolwell, but not by much: it seems later (in the mid-90s) he owned a Chevy Monza sports sedan that he raced a few times at Surfers Paradise, and then in the Noughties he was involved with a Carrera Cup team and lower-tier V8 Supercars. But that was where the trail went cold, because Googling "Maurice Pickering" didn't really turn up anything else.

Googling "Maurie Pickering", however, turned up an interview for a Queensland trade rag, complete with glamour shots and some juicy quotes. Today he's a middle-aged and rather successful businessman, but in 1990 he was a 27-year-old working at a Holden dealership in Wynnum, which explains both the car (an outdated VK) and the location, which was only forty minutes from Lakeside in south Brisbane. The comments from the man himself are gold.

I started in karting in the early 1980s, and a few years later I was racing against Peter Brock and Dick Johnson! I only had a tiny budget back then because I was very much a privateer, but I recall sitting there next to them in the briefing room and having to pinch myself!

I bought a Group A Commodore, but we then entered the era when we were changing from VK to VL Commodores – when Brock started driving BMWs and Sierras.

We were trying to compete in a VK, which was essentially a taxi with a carburetted engine built in the 1960s! We pushed the envelope to try and keep up but then the Skyline arrived. The last race I had in Group A was at Oran Park. I had 485hp and was coming out of a corner when a Skyline came up on the inside, left four black lines, and was gone! I thought, "What are we doing this for?!".

Sadly, despite pausing the video frequently, I couldn't find a car I could definitively identify as Maurie's. Nor could I find anything through Google images (although thanks to an enthusiast webpage, images of his Monza are apparently plentiful). So if anyone has a snap of Maurie Pickering's #36 VK Commodore, again, the comment box is below. I'd love to see it.

The Bake on the Lake

When the green flag flew the pace was immediately as hot as the weather in the Sunshine State itself. The key to the early laps was that both DJR drivers made very good starts, and neither TLR driver did. Dick made an absolutely perfect start and leapt into a half-second lead on the first lap alone, while Bowe likewise shot away like a Queensland cockroach when you flick the kitchen light on. That corked the bottle nicely, as both Alan Jones and Tony Longhurst unexpectedly found themselves trapped behind him. From a 2-4 start the Shell Sierras were now running 1-2, and both Jonesy and Tony would now have to pot a red before they could try for a colour.

Behind, there was the usual first-lap fustercluck: the pack shuffled Gerald Kay in the Jagparts Walky off into the weeds, and none too gently either, but he was able to rejoin without stirring up anything more than some dust (he would later land in the sand trap and lose four laps extricating himself, but that was another story). Jim Richards was then similarly hung out to dry through the Karrussell courtesy of Larry Perkins, but he too (of course) was able to keep it together and rejoin without incident. Kevin Waldock in the Playscape Sierra, however, was not so lucky, leaving the track somewhere near Hungry Corner and coming to a rest with damage to the front-right corner of his car – just a bent guard, thankfully, with no obvious puncture or wheel damage. He was able to continue, but he didn't feature in the race again.

Reasonably sure this is Lakeside, probably in a practice session.

The next few laps were brilliant viewing for the race fan, thanks to one Anthony Lawrence Longhurst, who was all over Bowe's car like a rash. In the course of ten laps or so Tony threw everything he had at Bowe trying to force a way past, ducking and diving like Muhammad Ali fighting a tennis ball machine. The body language of the yellow Sierra made it clear Tony hadn't planned on winning this one by conservation; he needed to get past, now, and Bowe's demon start had wrongfooted his strategy completely.

These laps were some of the most aggressive we'd ever seen from Tony, a man who'd learned his mentor Frank Gardner's ways and was better known for driving smart than driving hard. But as these laps proved, on his day, he was up there with the very best this country could produce. Against Bowe he lacked for nothing on pace and fighting spirit, but it couldn't last. Within ten minutes his tyres were toast and he began falling back, leaving Bowe to run his race unmolested.

Guest commentator Allan Grice pointed out that Jonesy, on the other hand, was "driving a lot straighter than we'd seen him." It seemed the Longhurst drivers had opted for a tortoise-and-hare team strategy, but the Johnson team's lightning-quick start had rather shoved a stick through their spokes. With thirteen minutes done, Dick was nearly four seconds ahead of Bowe and still pushing hard – slight puffs of smoke from the front tyres under braking gave that away, no matter how neat and tidy it all looked from the outside. Longhurst was still 3rd but now falling into the clutches of Gregg Hansford, neither of them pushing as hard as they had in the opening laps. 5th was Jones, then Larry Perkins (who'd won an early scrap with Win Percy, carrying on their usual intra-Holden grudge match), then Bond, the two Nissans (Skaife ahead of Richards), and Peter Brock, who was having a dice with the slow-starting (but fast-lapping) Glenn Seton. After another substantial gap, we then had Andrew Miedecke in a tooth-and-nail fight for position with Win Percy. Neil Crompton revealed Percy had suffered an early spin the cameras didn't catch, but had rejoined without incident, dropping from 7th down to 13th.

Now lapping seconds off his opening pace, Tony Longhurst finally gave up and headed to pit lane for a fresh set of Yokohamas. It was a quick stop, and after taking service he rejoined way down in 14th place. As Crompton had said, the tyre techies were scratching their heads this weekend as the rubber coming off the cars was showing few signs of wear; it was just the temperature that was killing them. The race had been underway for just seventeen minutes, meaning it was about ten minutes too early for a planned stop.

Colin Bond was having a good day, though. Having started behind the factory Nissans, he was now ahead of both of them and harassing Perkins. Another lap and he was past, latching onto the #11 down Motorcraft Hill, then pulling out and simply powering past down the kinked front straight. That was the signal Larry needed, as he headed for the pits a lap later. Not even 20 minutes out of 50 – this was looking more and more like a two-stop race than a one-stopper.

About the same time, Alan Jones was finally inching up on the back of John Bowe – good progress, except his exhaust was now periodically letting out a puff of white smoke, usually on the overrun. "Pretty short-term proposition..." was Grice’s judgement, and he was right. Only a lap later Jones slowed on the approach to the Karrussell, and came out of the corner hugging the inside line to stay out of everyone's way, the smoke from the exhaust now matched by more smoke from the left-side vent in his bonnet. Being a LHD car, that was blowing straight into his windscreen, so there was no way Jones could ignore this one: he was forced into retirement with 23 laps on his scorecard.

Turbos couldn't take the heat even on a mild day, and this was a long way from one of those.

That eased some of the pressure on the Shell cars, but not much. In the space vacated by Jonesy there was now Colin Bond, who'd just relieved Gregg Hansford of 4th place (Hansford took the hint and pitted soon after). 5th and 6th were the Nissan teammates Skaife and Richards, 7th and 8th was the ongoing battle between Brock and Seton, 9th was Win Percy and 10th was Andrew Miedecke.

Exactly what happened next is hard to say. During the ad break there was a flurry of pit stops, and as the Channel Seven broadcast showed neither replays nor basic graphics like positions or laps, the situation suddenly became very confusing. It seemed both the Nissans had pitted, as had John Bowe, but Dick Johnson had stayed out and he was now a very worried man. The in-car cameras showed him asking his team about the gap back to Bond, while he struggled to deal with a feisty Perkins, who was trying to un-lap himself after that early stop. With fresh rubber on – despite being a Commodore – that was looking like a close contest, which showed the highly-partisan Queensland crowd what they didn't want to see: Dick's tyres were dying.

A single ad break, and suddenly Bondy was in 2nd place, having profited from everyone else's stops, while Brock was up to 3rd using the same tactics. With 28 out of 50 minutes done, that was quite a turnaround.

Another lap-and-a-half and Johnson conceded defeat, peeled off over the hill and headed for pit lane. Bond was on cloud nine. It was only now that Crompo bothered to tell us what Bond had been up to in the practice sessions, running long stints and maintaining a pace in the low 55-second range throughout. "That'll obviously win the race," said Allan Grice without a moment's hesitation, "because we saw before John Bowe came in he slipped back to the 68s."

Lapping John Smith's Supra. Again.

For what it was worth, Johnson's stop was quick and tidy, but even so it would be a tall order to catch Bond from there. Could the Caltex Sierra really go all the way on a single set of Toyos? His pace just had to drop off eventually, didn't it? Would it be enough for Johnson to catch him if it did? Johnson put in a mighty effort, pedalling the #17 like he hadn't needed to in over two years, but the question was settled late in the race when he overdid it and had a spin, dropping him from 3rd down to 10th.

That promoted – pinch yourself – Win Percy to 3rd place, the first-ever podium finish for the Holden Racing Team. That early honour battle with Larry Perkins had gone quite the other way in the end, as Larry made a second stop for tyres with barely five minutes left on the clock – then returned to the pits only a lap later to correct a wheel that hadn't been fitted properly. Larry just sat there with his arm out the window, too resigned to be surly. He never expected much against all these turbo cars, but he'd expected more than this, and Percy getting to the podium was just extra salt in the wound.

But today the glory was all Bondy's. With the clock run out, cheery Colin slung his Caltex Sierra down the hill one last time and zoomed across the finish line to take one of the most stunning and unexpected victories Australia had seen in years. No-one, absolutely no-one, had seen this coming, and bookies across the country spat out their toothpicks and did the mental arithmetic to work out whether this result had just bankrupted them. Against all odds, Bond had done the entire race on a single set of Toyos – which, just for once, had been just the tools for the job. Mike Raymond even quipped that he might be the only man to finish Bathurst this year without a tyre change, while Grice had an amusing Murray Walker moment when he said: "It just goes to show, you've gotta keep banging in there, gotta keep hanging away at it."

Now just to be clear, this is sometimes cited as Bond's first win in over a decade, but that isn't quite accurate. He'd also won the first round of the AMSCAR series in 1988, just over two years and one month earlier. But if you only count points-paying ATCC rounds, then yes, it was Bond's first taste of the champagne since Adelaide, 5 June 1977. By my count, that means it had been 4,717 days since he'd last won a championship race – a long time between drinks, even for a driver in the "elder statesman" phase of his career. It was so long ago, the last time he'd mounted the top step of the podium his teammate had been Allan Moffat, and his ride (and hair style) had looked like this:

Moffat and Bond demonstrating proper victory lap technique, Oran Park, 1977.

So, with Bond 1st, Brock 2nd and Percy 3rd, the championship battle was momentarily put on hold. It isn't often brought up in discussions of this race, but the scores deserved some attention all the same. With Richards picking up 8 points for 5th place, and Johnson 4 for finishing 7th, the two titans of the series were now deadlocked on 64 points apiece. Bowe trailed on 58 points, with Bond jumping up to 42 and Brock to 40, followed by Seton on 32 and Longhurst on 30. We were past the halfway point of the season, opportunities to score were running out, and it literally couldn't have been closer. So of course, it was at this point that Gibson Motorsport finally got the cane out of the cupboard and deployed the car we'd been waiting to see since January. Mallala was next, and Fred Gibson was bringing a howitzer to a knife fight.