Peter Brock, driving as a privateer with Brian Sampson, broke the Falcon stranglehold on the 1000 with a two-lap victory as Toranas dominated the race.

The field had a strong international flavour, particularly in the smaller classes. England’s John Fitzpatrick, Marie-Claude Beaumont from France and expatriate Australian Tim Schenken were all retained by Alfa Romeo. Peter Williamson brought out Hong Kong’s John McDonald to partner him in the BMW, while Don Holland had Japan’s top driver, Hiro Fushida, as his Mazda co-driver.

Practice brought few surprises, except that the Falcons did not perform as well as expected. The John Goss/Kevin Bartlet car struck many minor problems while the Allan Moffat/Ian Geoghegan car was very slow early.

Brock set the pace with a 2.28.6, but Moffat, in the final session, recorded only 2.27.5, only to be pipped by Colin Bond (Dealer Team Torana) with a 2.27.4.

The race proved one of the toughest ever run. A fast pace and a series of hectic duels throughout the classes took its toll, particularly of the big cars.

In all 23 cars were officially classed as non-finishers. And the performance put up by the then controversial 3-litre cars surprised many. At one stage Bo Seton’s Capri was fourth outright and coming home strongly, until an axle failed and the car shed a wheel.

Bond won the start and led for two laps, until headed by Moffat who set up a handy lead over Bond and Brock.

But the writing was on the wall for the Fords. After only 10 laps Goss blew a motor and Moffat’s challenge virtually came to an end on lap 72 when the Falcon developed gear selection problems and sat in the pits for 40 minutes.

The HDT Torana ran into problems only a lap later, and was pulled to the back of the pits where both axles were replaced.

This more or less ‘gifted’ the race to Brock, who drove steadily to score a convincing two-lap win over the Bob Morris/Frank Gardner Torana.

Don Holland also had the 3-litre class served up to him as Bo Seton was outed while leading clearly. The 2-litre class was fiercely contested, and saw Beaumont and John Leffler narrow winners in their Alfa, while Peter Lander took the under 1300cc class in a Cooper S.