It was wet, cold and much too early, and it almost made me famous for all of the incorrect reasons. Eastern Creek Raceway – now often known as Sydney Motorsport Park – was beckoning.
A dark, brooding racetrack covered in a skinny film of water as misty rain always leaked from the grey skies above.
I’m sitting on a tough race seat, clutching a thin-rimmed black steering wheel with fog filling the visor of a race helmet borrowed from my editor, Andrew Maclean – whose name you’ll also see at CarExpert lately.
The automobile I’m sitting in is really irreplaceable.
A real icon, it’s the #76 Holden Dealer Team (HDT) Torana A9X that raced at Bathurst in 1978 and 1979.
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I cannot contain my excitement to drive a automobile that had sat across from its sister automobile, the #05 of Peter Brock – probably the most dominant race cars in Australian motorsport history.
Brock won the Bathurst 1000 twice in an A9X – the last time, in 1979, famously by a staggering six laps, after setting the fastest time in his final lap around Mount Panorama, in perhaps the best performance ever seen in The Great Race.
Is six laps much? Well yes, given the lap at Bathurst is just over six kilometres long…
The Torana A9X is a legend, however the HDT A9X is the head of the A9X set. They simply don’t come any higher.
The #76 was the second HDT automobile. Race driver Charlie O’Brien famously crashed it into the wall at Bathurst in 1978, but by the point I got my hands on it, the late, great Jason Richards was running it in Muscle Automotive Masters.
My first automobile was a V8 Holden Commodore, however the privilege, honour and responsibility of driving a real piece of history was each salivating and somewhat daunting.
Jase needed it back – and, well, if I binned the thing, I’d be The One Who Crashed The A9X.
The automobile later sold for near $1 million, following rumours of $2 million being offered for one more #05 automobile.
That’s how necessary these cars are to Australia’s motor racing history, and to passionate rev-heads like me who grew up on HDT, hot Holdens and a ferocious hatred of all things Ford.
It was an infinite responsibility, layered on by the rain. Oh, and slick tyres, and a 2:60-to-one Detroit Locker diff.
That’s right, a young journalist within the age of smart differentials, electronic failsafes and – frankly – significantly better tyre and brake tech was about to be set free in an ancient, priceless war horse. On a wet racetrack.
The A9X was raw. I mean, raw. As a race automobile, it ran a 780cfm Holley carb, and the hatchback body was chosen so HDT could fit wider rear tyres for the track.
The inside still had carpet and a splash with excellent racing dials, classic white-on-black, and the race seat was bolstered but had less grip on me than a brand-new HSV road automobile on the time.
There was an extended, conventional, chromed shift lever capped by an oddly white cue ball knob, which looked misplaced in the dead of night, sinister cabin.
The passenger seat was road-car stock, meaning flat and wide, behind a glove box lid signed by the legendary Harry Firth – the previous Holden race boss who plucked a young Brock out of obscurity for the team in 1969 – and the #76 automobile’s former custodian, 1983 Bathurst winner John Harvey.
In comparison with the plastic and leather of contemporary cars – and now brilliant touchscreens and ambient lighting – the A9X was steampunk, industrial. It was heavy, steel, and raw, old-fashioned fire-breathing power, back when you could possibly make grunt anyway you knew how.
“Holy shit!” I believe as I turned the A9X’s ignition key (yes, it had a turnkey, not a flowery starter button), and the 5.0-litre Holden V8 rumbles to life. What a sound to enrich what’s in front of me: my mind now knows that is real.
“ the circuit, right?” asked the team boss before I trundled out. I had never driven it. “Yes, after all,” I replied. No person was taking this moment away from me.
The three pedals are heavy. I put it into first to maneuver forward. But I don’t. I stall it like a 16-year-old does the primary time they’re allowed to throw the L-plates on mum and pop’s automobile. The blokes within the garage are chuckling. Bastards.
Second time, I get it done – hopefully that’s the one issue as I get to know this famous Australian.
Now it was time to not appear like an idiot (again) by driving too slow or too fast and binning it.
I didn’t wish to appear like they’d lent a Ducati to my mum, but I also didn’t wish to put my name on the map by burying an HDT icon right into a wall. Sure, it’s repairable, but no – that’s just not on.
As I tip-toe across the wet, fast and undulating layout – try that slippery, shiny surface within the pics – I get a tad more confident. Only a tad. But that’s tempered by the wheelspin in second, third and fourth along the important straight.
This thing needs Brock heroics, and his driving skill was missing from my DNA. The steering is heavy; the steering wheel itself is sort of large, to supply the mandatory leverage as there’s no power steering.
Power? Well, there’s plenty, but officially it was around 400hp (300kW) – and greater than I could handle despite the race-tuned Torana chassis.
Nevertheless, man and machine bonded after a handful of laps, before the ultimate run almost made me famous.
As I ventured down the still-wet important straight, then negotiated the long left-hander that leads as much as Turn 2, I dropped – I believe – a wheel onto the white shiny kerbing paint on the skin of the track.
In a flash, I’m heading backwards – still with a little bit of pace – and my mind says “stop the automobile”. Brake. Clutch in. Silence. My mind rushes – what did I do? Did I hit anything? Not a smudge, or a dint – only a smirk on my face.
I just got away with it. So I believed, “Rattling I hope the photographer got it!”. Sadly not.
I enterprise back, knowing that I’ve pushed the envelope enough to give you the chance to say I had a go, but I’m in a position to return this legendary automobile back to Richards – who’d raced it the previous weekend – intact.
Never, ever have I driven a automobile in circumstances so daunting. I mean, it seemed more forgivable to trash an exotic supercar than bin a Bathurst-winning HDT A9X.
But you’ve got to say yes to these items, since it never comes up again.
That day got here from an odd combination. Lexus wanted to point out off its ISF Safety Automotive, so it put the concept together based on each cars having 5.0-litre V8s.
A tenuous link, but one I’m glad was made. I jumped into the ISF after the A9X, and it felt like driving a supersonic jet after riding an almighty medieval catapult. The grip and the facility delivery were incomparable, due to the Japanese automobile’s modern road tyres, power steering, fuel-injection, and more.
Yet there’s one thing it couldn’t match: the pure, unadulterated connectedness and engagement of the Holden. It’s why it was so successful: it inspired confidence in an era of big-bore muscle cars, enabling Brock, Harvey, and Jim Richards to dominate Aussie touring automobile racing within the late Nineteen Seventies.
Come 2025, and it’s the ISF that’s long gone and we’re now farewelling somewhat of a collector automobile as the ultimate version of the IS500 – not sold here – rolls off the production line in Japan later this 12 months.
Satirically, a derivative of its 5.0-litre V8 shall be on the Supercars grid in 2026, competing within the modern-day equivalent of the Australian championship won by the A9X multiple times.
The Bathurst 1000 takes place this weekend, sadly with out a Holden in sight after General Motors retired the homegrown brand in 2020 – before its final win at The Mountain in 2022.
Yet Lexus’ parent company Toyota shall be there in 2026 with its Supra, as Australia’s most famous motor race rolls around once more, constructing more legends in the method.
Even when none may ever grow to be as iconic as Brock and the #76 HDT A9X.
This Article First Appeared At www.carexpert.com.au
