“Bynow,of course,I’dhadanofferof a drive.
Harry Firth rang a few weeks after entries closed
- and was very put out to hear that I’d already
arranged my own car. Didn’t Alma give it to him for
leaving it so late!”
Imagine one wily old fox joining the team
managed by another!
As it turns out, McPhee almost spoilt the party
in ’69 for Firth, whom he had no beef with, and
very nearly pulled Holden’s pants down when he
ran a GT-HO. A Silver Fox-hued example at that!
Oh, the irony.
Three weeks before Bathurst, McPhee had
contested the Datsun Three Hour at Sandown,
finishing third on the road behind the works
GT-HO of Allan Moffat/John French and Murray
Carter/Tom Roddy’s dealer-entered example.
McPhee and one-lap-wonder Barry Mulholland
were excluded from the results as McPhee
had exceeded the two-hour driving limit, a rare
occasion when he wasn’t on top of the race
regulations.
“Still,” McPhee wrote for Stathis’ book, “it was
an excellent test for the car and showed that one
needs only a good standard car, driven properly, to
go well in this type of event.”
HiswordssuggesthisXWFalconrequired
fewer of McPhee’s traditional demon tweaks than
the previous year’s heavily-fettled HK Monaro.
On the Mountain, the silver car (with orange
stripe) qualified on the front row of the grid and
McPhee was well ahead of the chaos that ensued
on the top of the Mountain on the opening lap after
the GT-HOs of Bill Brown and Mike Savva tangled.
Around midday, however, McPhee found himself
unable to avoid an errant class car.
“I was happy to sit in seventh spot for [the first]
hour and a half, with the car running beautifully
and not a care in the world. Then suddenly, this
Mini slid wide in The Cutting in front of me and
I couldn’t miss it. I gave it a big clout in the rear,
which jammed my guard on the tyre, so I had to
stop at Reid Park to pull it off, then stop at my pit
to finish the job. I took fuel on at the same time,
and being about 11 laps early upset the schedule,
which was to prove very costly in the closing
stages of the race.
“The whole incident cost me approximately
six minutes and it wouldn’t be easy to make that
up. But I gave it a go, stepping up the pace until,
with a dozen laps to go, I was only four seconds
behind the leader, the Bond/Roberts Monaro.“Unfortunatelythatearlypitstopwasmy
undoing. I had to pit for a quick churn of fuel,
which took 60 seconds and dropped me to 44
seconds behind the Monaro when the chequered
flag fell. During the race I recorded the highest top
speed down Conrod Straight, just under 136mph.”
McPhee’s fighting second place didn’t go
unnoticed and unrewarded.
“If I was disappointed not to have received an
offer of a drive after winning Bathurst in 1968, I
certainly had no reason to complain after my close
second place in 1969. No less a person than Al
Turner from the Ford Motor Company approached
me within weeks of the race and offered a backup
car to Allan Moffat (for Bathurst 1970). It was quite
a feather in the cap for this old privateer. I was
about to turn 44 remember, and to this point I’d
always paid my own way, so to be in a factory
team seemed too good to be true.”
Appreciative of the opportunity, but aware of
the pecking order, McPhee ceded to Moffat in the
1970 Hardie-Ferodo 500, happy to trail him home
in second (again) rather than pressure the factory
team’s leader for the victory.
The offer from Turner to join the works team
came after a whirlwind post-Bathurst 1969“Nobody approached me with an offer of a car to drive. This
may sound a bit big-headed but I reasoned that, after buying
and running my own cars at Bathurst every year since 1963,
with good results, winning the event might just qualify me for an
offer. But with the entry closing date approaching and no offers
forthcoming, I must admit that I was a bit miffed, so I decided to
change camps and get a Falcon.” - Bruce McPheeAutopics.com.auJeff Nield