Flashbacks! Enduro Anniversaries

As we approach the endurance season, let’s take a look back at the key decade-on anniversaries from the long-distance races over the years.

- Adrian Musolino

1967

V8 engines ruled the single-race Australian Touring Car Championship, with the Ford Mustang the car to beat in the hands of Ian Geoghegan. But smaller capacity cars such as the Morris Coopers had previously dominated at Mount Panorama.

Australian-built V8 muscle cars arrived that year in the shape of the Ford XR Falcon GT with the backing of Ford Australia and a strong driver line-up that included team boss Harry Firth and co-driver Fred Gibson in one car and Ian Geoghegan and brother Leo in another.

The Falcons qualified first and second, with Ian Geoghegan taking pole. In the race positions were reversed and Firth and Gibson claimed the win, albeit following conjecture over whether a lap-count error meant it was the Geoghegans who should have been declared the winners, a debate that raged on for decades.

The V8 had arrived at Mount Panorama, though the Alfa Romeo 1600 GTV showed there was still some fight from smaller cars by finishing third and fourth, on the same lap as the Falcons.

EVENT WINNERS

BATHURST 500: Harry Firth/Fred Gibson (Ford XR Falcon GT)

1977

The 1977 Australian Touring Car Championship included endurance races at Sandown and Phillip Island but, curiously, not the Bathurst 1000 – not that Allan Moffat needed the points from Bathurst for what was a dominant championship win.

Moffat had to settle for third at Sandown, two laps adrift of winner Peter Brock, driving for Bill Patterson Racing, and behind Allan Grice, who completed a one-two for the Holden LX Torana SS A9X.