Peter McLeod lived out many driver’s dreams in 1987 by joining Peter Brock’s HDT and winning the Bathurst 1000, no less a World Touring Car Championship round that year.
A controversial season for Brock after splitting with Holden and his team becoming depleted as a result, McLeod got the call due to owning a spare engine after entering alongside Peter Fitzgerald in his VK Commodore.
“Out of the blue I get this call from Bev,” McLeod recalled.
“’Hi Pete, it’s Bev Brock, do you want to come and drive for us?’ I’m on the reserve list so I guess I’ll come and drive. Absolutely, that was manor from heaven.”
It was an auspicious start as McLeod teamed with Formula 2 driver Jon Crooke in the second Mobil Holden VL Commodore Group A after the intended pilot, Neil Crompton was unable to get his licence upgraded in time.
Narrowly avoiding the wall after a steering component failed approaching Griffin’s Bend set the tone to an amazing weekend, as the event could have finished there and then if contact with the wall was made.
“Somehow, magically, good fortune rather than good management I think I kept it off the wall,” McLeod recalled.
“It was that close it took the review vision mirror off. It was heading straight on into the end of the concrete.
“For whatever reason I was bouncing off the brakes and I was trying to get the back to come around to point it through this little gap that I could see and I just managed to get enough angle to make it through.”
Not flush with finds at this time of the season, the second VL Commodore was fitted with the worn out parts of the team leader’s, but it was this chassis, which was destined to make history.
“It was just a bare bones thing,” described McLeod. “Whatever they had lying around the workshop, that’s what got bolted into that car. It was a bucketer, but to me, for what I was used to and I thought we had pretty good cars, it was still pretty good.
“That shows how much better his best cars were compared to our average cars, because I thought mine was better than average so there was a big step between what he normally was used and what everyone else was driving around in.”
McLeod completed a double stint and enjoyed it immensely as he climbed into the top 10 as the lead VL Commodore shared by Brock and David ‘Skippy’ Parsons retired right after completing its first stop.
“I had it flowing beautiful and was very happy in the car,” McLeod said about his stint. “I could have just kept on keeping on.
“I came in for the first pit stop and that was fine. Mort (Graeme Brown) just said ‘stay in the car, go again’ and by then I was getting up to Terry Shiel in the second of the Skylines, where after six or seven laps I got the better of him, which put me into fifth.”
With the lead Mobil VL blowing an engine, Brock and Parsons commandeered McLeod’s VL leaving Crooke to sit out the race. Four years earlier, Brock’s younger brother Phil did likewise.
Parsons’ drive was outstanding and by the end of a race where the weather played havoc, the trio finished third. However, there was more to emerge.
“’Skippy’ was the hero and Brock put on a show,” McLeod summarised.
“The arguments came out about the fuel and how they were fitting the tyres so we knew that it is up in the air so we knew we were a good chance after the race.”
Questions marks had hung over the Eggenberger Ford Sierra RS500s throughout the weekend, but JPS BMW Team Manager Frank Gardner’s protest regarding the wheel flares on the Texaco branded, turbo weapons proved successful.
This gave Brock his ninth and final Bathurst victory, while lost Ford the World Touring Car Championship title.
However, it proved Brock’s last event for Holden for three and a half years as he transferred to BMW in 1988.