Stretching the rubber band
M
azda rewarded Moffat with an ultimately
class-winning drive at Daytona in January
before tackling a new domestic season.
He was con dent after extensive testing,
including in Japan (after also taking a class
win in the Macau Group 5 race en route to Fuji
Raceway), and at the opening ATCC round at
Sandown the RX7 was 1.8 seconds a lap faster
than he’d been ve months earlier.
The ATCC was not his priority in 1982,
though, but rather Bathurst and the Australian
Endurance Championship later in the year. He
skipped the Calder round to spite track owner
Bob Jane, and the long haul to Wanneroo,
killed an engine at Symmons Plains from
being stuck in the slipstream of Kevin Bartlett’s
Camaro all race and lost a win after jumping the
start at Oran Park, yet still nished third in the
championship with two wins.
Still, the fans were unrepentant, hanging
out banners about ‘Jap Crap’, ‘Riceburners’ and
even ‘Remember Pearl Harbour’. It was aQ&A Allan Horsley
AMC: When did you get involved with Mazda
and Moffat?
AH: In 1981. I had left Oran Park and I got a
phone call just as I was about to buy a real
estate agency. I was employed by Mazda, not
Moffat, but he would have put me up for the
job. There was no budget for privateers, but we
did look after some of them.
AMC: Did you do any naughty things with
the car?
AH: Not really. We were subject to closer
scrutiny than any other team’s car, I reckon.
Peter (Brock) was going to protest us once for
gas (nitrous-oxide), but he didn’t. Mind you,
we did encourage that a little bit by putting
whatever the symbol was for that gas on a re
extinguisher bottle or something.
AMC: Just a gag? You never ran it?
AH: No.
AMC: How did you get on with Moffat?
AH: I had a good relationship with Moff, even
though he was ornery. I don’t think I ever had
an argument with him.
AMC: Any regrets about the project?
AH: We should have won Bathurst – that was
the real one that bugged me.
AMC: Any year in particular?
AH: The one where the big crash was (1981).
We would have won that easily. We used the
harder tyres right through the race, and then
we put the quick ones on (for the end), the
quali ers, and we could have got to the end on
those. They were worth quite a bit of time. Plus
Dick was absolutely out of oil, he leaked most
of it onto Conrod Straight where they pulled
them all up, so we would have won that race.
AMC: Whose idea was the famous mid-race
pit stop at Wanneroo during the 1983 ATCC
race?
in FormulaOne,soI didallthemathsand
worked out what the timings were, and it was
half a chance. That hill at Wanneroo certainly
hurt our performance, and we knew we were
so many seconds quicker with half a tank, so
why don’t we do this? There was nowhere else
you could really do that. Before the race I gave
(TV commentator) Will Hagon an envelope
and said you can open that after the race
starts. I didn’t want them to go into a panic, so
it explained what we were going to do.
AMC: That strategy was brilliant.
AH: It nearly became unbrilliant when bloody
Mick (Webb) stuck the churn through the
window glass! We hadn’t practiced a stop and
he missed going into the fuel ller and it went
through the window.