L
ater this year in the Supercars
Championship, the 60th Australian
Touring Car Champion will be crowned.
While winning the ATCC is isn’t
something that usually comes
easily, in some years it’s been particularly
hard-won.
The most recent of those was James
Courtney’s 2010 win. Courtney was lead
driver for a Dick Johnson Racing out t
that was cash-strapped and literally
ghting to survive. The opposition was
Jamie Whincup and Triple Eight – at
the time was the dominant force in V8
Supercars, and the factory Ford team
which supplied DJR with its racecars.
Only the very brave would have bet on
Courtney and DJR that year.
Jim Richards’ 1990 win was mostly
achieved in the HR31 Nissan Skyline,
a difficult-to-drive and generally
unloved turbo straight-six which no one
expected would be able to get on topof a battalion of Ford Sierra RS500s. It’s true
that Richards sealed the title with what was
the rst race win for the new all-wheel drive
Nissan GT-R R32, but it was Richo’s deft
touchatturningtheHR31sow’searintoasilk purse that delivered the silverware.
And then there was 1979. That year,
Bob Morris and Sydney Holden Dealer Ron
Hodgson combined to take on Peter Brock
andthemight of the factory Holden Dealer
They’d fallen short in 1978 but, in
a series-long contest that was no
less asymmetrical than Courtney/
DJR vs Whincup/888 Ford battle in
010, they managed to prevail in the
nal round.
It’s true the Hodgson team
was well funded and well led by
Peter Molloy. But they were up
gainst the factory team in identical
orana A9X equipment, at a time
hen Brock was arguably at the
eak of his powers. For all Brock’s
chievements, he only won the ATCC
n three occasions. But as a factory
DT driver, there was only one time
hen he was beaten to the title by
other Holden driver.