Peter Brock Totally Explained

Everything about Peter Brock totally explained

Peter Geoffrey Brock AM (26 February, 1945 – 8 September, 2006) otherwise known as Peter Perfect, The King of the Mountain or simply as Brocky was one of Australia's best-known and most successful motor racing drivers. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, although he raced vehicles of other manufacturers including BMW, Ford, Volvo, Porsche and Peugeot. (External Link

) He won the Bathurst 1000 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 Victorian country town of Hurstbridge (now an outer suburb of Melbourne) and continued to live there throughout his life. He attended Eltham High School in Eltham Victoria His first car was an Austin 7 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).

Standing in community

As the lead driver for the Holden Dealer Team in a succession of both 6- and 8-cylinder Holden Toranas 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.

International racing

Unlike several other Australian drivers, Brock didn't seek a full-time racing career outside Australia. He did attempt the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times in privateer vehicles, firstly in 1976 in a BMW 3.0CSL, which failed; he then returned for the 1981 race teamed with Colin Bond and Jim Richards in the Porsche Cars Australia #74 Porsche 924 Carrera GTR but while the team practiced, they were only named as a reserve, not participating in the race itself; then in 1984 in the orange Bob Jane T-Marts sponsored Porsche 956 with co-driver Larry Perkins, running as high as 5th at one stage of the race, they retired after Perkins crashed on lap 145. Brock also won the 1979 Repco Round Australia trial, a long-distance endurance rally featuring some dirt road sections completely different to the circuit racing where he made his name.

Motoring safety campaign

Brock also worked with the Victorian authorities promoting the campaign against drunk driving. The most obvious sign of this association was the race car number 05 which related to the 0.05% blood alcohol limit in Victoria, which he utilized constantly from the mid-1970s. Most cars he raced in, regardless of the motor racing division, bore this number, including the one in which he died.

Other activities

Brock, who lived hard in his early years, changed his lifestyle considerably after the failed 1984 Le Mans attempt left him physically and emotionally drained.
   Brock began to consult health practitioner Eric Dowker. He gave up alcohol and cigarettes, and became a vegan. Brock began publicly supporting and, eventually, began to fit to all Holden Dealer Team specials a device called the "Energy Polarizer" containing crystals and magnets that, it was claimed, improved the performance and handling of vehicles through "aligning the molecules".
   The overwhelming majority of the Australian motoring community regarded the device as pseudoscience.
   After his work with Lada, Brock, during the period 1988-1990 sold around 200 personally modified EA-series Ford Falcons, Fairmont Ghias, Fairlanes and Mavericks through Austech Automotive Developments.
   While Brock was always typecast in a Holden, he did have 'brief flirtations' with other makes in touring car racing. After his 1987 Holden split, he campaigned a BMW M3 (1988), and a Ford Sierra (1989-90). He also campaigned a Ford Falcon in the AUSCAR series.
   By 1991 he and Holden, having patched up their relationship, were back together. A further flirtation of Brock's was in 1994 when he raced a Volvo 850 in the one-off Bathurst 12-Hour. He also competed for Volvo in the Australian Super Touring Championship in 1996.

Retirement activities

Brock continued to race in privately supported teams for some years afterwards, but returned to the factory Holden Racing Team in 1994. Brock retired from full-time driving in 1997.
   After his nominal 'retirement' he made two returns to Bathurst (2002 and 2004) and competed in the Nations Cup for highly modified and exotic cars in 2004. In 2002, he returned to top-level touring car racing as a team patron with Rod Nash Racing in V8 Supercar Commodore in that year's Bathurst 1000 and the team was renamed 'Team Brock' as a branding exercise. The 'Team Brock' branding exercise was revived for 2003 this time with Paul Weel Racing but this time Brock's role was as a mentor rather than a driver. Frustrated with the lack of control he held over a team bearing his name, Brock and the team parted company at the end of the season.
   He occasionally competed in various enthusiast-level motorsport events such as the Targa Tasmania. The team's vehicles are actually constructed by Holden Special Vehicles. His smooth on-camera persona and familiarity to older Australians continued to sell products, including Mobil Oils and Bridgestone tyres, as the controversy of the Energy Polarizer had been largely forgotten.
   He achieved a tenth Bathurst win, in a manner of sorts, later in 2003, at the Bathurst 24 Hour, when he won, with Greg Murphy, Jason Bright and Todd Kelly in a Garry Rogers Motorsport prepared HRT 427C, a highly modified version of the Holden Monaro production car.

Career results

Season	Series	Position	Car	Team
1973	Australian Touring Car Championship	2nd	Holden Torana LJ XU1	Holden Dealer Team
1974	Australian Touring Car Championship	1st	Holden Torana LJ XU1	Holden Dealer Team
1975	Australian Touring Car Championship	7th	Holden Torana LH L34	Bruce Hindhaugh
1976	Australian Touring Car Championship	6th	Holden Torana LH L34	Team Brock
1977	Australian Touring Car Championship	3rd	Holden Torana LH L34	Bill Patterson Holden
1978	Australian Touring Car Championship	1st	Holden Torana LX A9X	Holden Dealer Team
1979	Australian Touring Car Championship	2nd	Holden Torana LX A9X	Holden Dealer Team
1980	Australian Touring Car Championship	1st	Holden Commodore VB	Holden Dealer Team
1981	Australian Touring Car Championship	2nd	Holden Commodore VC	Holden Dealer Team
1982	Australian Touring Car Championship	5th	Holden Commodore VC	Holden Dealer Team
1983	Australian Touring Car Championship	3rd	Holden Commodore VH	Holden Dealer Team
1984	Australian Touring Car Championship	2nd	Holden Commodore VH	Holden Dealer Team
1985	Australian Touring Car Championship	3rd	Holden Commodore VK SSGroupA	Holden Dealer Team
1986	Australian Touring Car Championship	5th	Holden Commodore VK SSGroupA	Holden Dealer Team
1987	Australian Touring Car Championship	7th	Holden Commodore VK SSGroupA	Holden Dealer Team
1988	Australian Touring Car Championship	5th	BMW M3	BMW Australia
1989	Australian Touring Car Championship	3rd	Ford Sierra RS500	Advantage Racing
1990	Australian Touring Car Championship	2nd	Ford Sierra RS500	Advantage Racing
1991	Australian Touring Car Championship	6th	Holden Commodore VN SSGroupA	Advantage Racing
1992	Australian Touring Car Championship	11th	Holden Commodore VN SSGroupA	Advantage Racing
1993	Australian Touring Car Championship	8th	Holden Commodore VP	Advantage Racing
1994	Australian Touring Car Championship	3rd	Holden Commodore VP	Holden Racing Team
1995	Australian Touring Car Championship	3rd	Holden Commodore VR	Holden Racing Team
1996	Australian Touring Car Championship	4th	Holden Commodore VR	Holden Racing Team
1996	Australian Super Touring Championship	6th	Volvo 850	Volvo Dealer Racing
1997	Australian Touring Car Championship	6th	Holden Commodore VS	Holden Racing Team
2002	V8Supercar Championship Series	68th	Holden Commodore VX	Team Brock
2003	Australian Nations Cup Championship	4th	Holden Monaro 427C	Ross Palmer Motorsport
2004	Australian Nations Cup Championship	6th	Holden Monaro 427C	Ross Palmer Motorsport
2004	V8Supercar Championship Series	58th	Holden Commodore VY	Holden Racing Team

Media work

Due to his extraordinary success on the racing track Brock became the Australian racing driver with the highest-profile as he undertook several media commitments. When not racing he often appeared on New Zealand television screens as a presenter; hosting motoring shows such as TV3's Police Stop (1996-1998) and TVNZ's Love that Car (2000).
He was also due to star in a racing film King of the Mountain alongside Shannon Noll in early 2007.
Brock has been the subject of two DVD documentaries—The Legend (1997 - updated 2004) (External Link

) and 35 Years on the Mountain (2005) (External Link

) .

Personal life

Brock married Heather Russell in 1967. The marriage ended in divorce two years later.
   Several years later Brock met 1973 Miss Australia pageant winner and Channel Seven weather presenter Michelle Downes. They married in April 1974 but this marriage was to be even shorter than his first, ending after only one year. In 2006, Downes claimed Brock repeatedly beat her, and forced her to have an abortion.
   Brock next entered into a relationship with Bev McIntosh, the wife of one of his motor racing team. herself in 2004 after finding most potential authors had incorrect preconceived notions about him. She also expressed a desire to show his human side, to encourage others that they, too, can achieve their goals. "Even Allan Moffat said it's okay for him—it's us mortals that have the problem," she said.
   According to Bev, Brock wasn't an entirely faithful partner. She has described in a book her eventual tiring in the early 1990s of his relationships with "one too many secretaries".
   After splitting with Bev, Peter began a relationship with Julie Bamford, whom he'd met through his former partner Bev some 20 years previously. Subsequently Bamford's estranged husband Ron McCurdy, who had once been a close friend of Brock's, assaulted Brock during a chance meeting outside the Peter Brock Foundation's office.

Death

At 11.50am (AWST) on 8 September, 2006, while driving in the Targa West '06 rally, Brock was 3 kilometres from the finish of the second stage of the race at Gidgegannup, about 40km from Perth, Western Australia when he skidded off a downhill left-hand bend on Clenton Road for over 50 metres in his 2001 Daytona Sportscar and hit a tree. 61-year-old Brock was killed instantly. His co-driver, Mick Hone, was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition. Video footage of the crash (provided by a fan and the in-car camera) was reviewed by Western Australian police to help determine the cause of the accident, however coroner Alastair Hope's report indicated his death was caused by high speed and that no coronial inquest would be performed.
   Brock's children accepted the offer of a Victorian state funeral, with former partner Bev telling ABC Radio: � "[Brock] was loved. He was in the public eye, and everything had to be done with a flourish and with a bang. It's probably the way he'd want to go out, (and) he'd want to be remembered."

The editor of Wheels Magazine, Ged Bulmer, said that Brock would be remembered for his nine victories at Bathurst, for "He had a long and very successful career there, he was the 'King of the Mountain' as he came to be known."
   Brock was farewelled with a state funeral at Melbourne's St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral, on 19 September, 2006. There will also be a permanent memorial at Peter Brock's "home" raceway, Sandown Raceway, placed there on 22 September.
   Ironically, Brock's casket was driven from Melbourne Airport in a Ford hearse, although Brock himself had once said he'd "prefer to throw up than back a Ford down a driveway". Funeral directors organising his farewell had arranged for a Holden Statesman hearse to bear him to his final, private cremation. (External Link

)

Legacy

In honour of his achievements and in recognition of his contribution to Australian motorsport, the Bathurst 1000 winner's trophy now carries his name.

Awards

In addition to his racing championships, Brock's efforts to society have been recognised in various ways:

Member of the Order of Australia (9 June 1980)—AM QB80. For service to the sport of motor racing. (External Link)
Bent Spoon Award (1986) Awarded by the Australian Skeptics for his promotion of the "Energy Polariser" device. (External Link)
Australian Sports Medal (24 October 2000) (External Link)
Centenary Medal (1 January 2001) For outstanding service to the community through fundraising. (External Link)
National Service Medal (14 February 2006) - For Military Service (?-1967)(External Link) (External Link)

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