E
lsewhere in this feature on the ’79 ATCC
battle, John Sheppard makes some
allegations regarding the legality of the
Hodgson Toranas’ engines.
Molloy strenuously denies Sheppard’s
allegation that the Hodgson Torana was running
oversize bores on the right cylinder bank,
describing the claim as ‘ridiculous’.
“You can’t have an unbalanced engine like
that,” Molloy says. “I don’t understand why anyone
would think that could even work. You wouldn’t
disturb the balance of the engine just to hide
something from the scrutineers, and we weren’t
trying to hide anything from them anyway.
“I never ever wanted to be caught cheating –
so I didn’t cheat. If you can’t do something right,
don’t do it.”
He also refutes Sheppard’s claim that
scrutineer Harry Firth (whom Sheppard had
replaced at the HDT at the end of ’77) took a
more lenient approach to checking the Hodgsoncar than he did with the HDT machines.
“Everything we did was checked by Harry,”
Molloy says. “You couldn’t get away with a
fart. He was an absolute pest. He was down
on me at every race meeting. He was out to
get me from the word go, and he was totally
frustrated.”
Bob Morris also refutes Sheppard’s
claims: “This is the rst time that I have
heard that HDT had felt that our engine was
not legal,” he told AMC.
Morris believes that his engine and Brock’s
were equal in power, and the difference was
simply the fact that the Hodgson Torana was
getting better drive onto the straight as the HDT
A9X’s Bridgestones began to fade.
“I was behind him from the start of the race,
and when we were both getting equal traction
we were both doing the same speed down the
straight, even though I was a little better geared
than he was. But when his tyres started to gooff,naturallyI wasgoingfasterthanhimonthe
straight.Wemighthavesteamedpasthimonthe
straight, but that was only because he wasn’t able
to get onto the straight quick enough.
“If we’d had a horsepower advantage, I would
have been able to pass Brock much earlier in the
race instead of waiting for his tyres to overheat.
“Personally, I just think on re ection that our
team did our homework and outsmarted the
factory team.”