ALLAN MOFFATUNTOUCHABLE
Nothing could touch Moffat and his Moffat Ford Deal-
ers team in 1977. There were 11 rounds that year’s
Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) – in a
forerunner to today’s all-in-one championship seasons,
it included the Sandown, Adelaide, Surfers Paradise and
Phillip Island enduros – and Moffat ran away with seven
of them.
Teammate Colin Bond, who had controversially been
tempted away from the factory Holden Dealer Team to
drive for arch-rival Ford, won another race. Six of their
combined eight wins were done with one-two finishes.
Add the famous Bathurst one-two finish to that and
you’ve got nine wins out of 12 for the team, seven of
them one-twos.
That’s a lot of winning but ask Moffat about 1977
and, like most fans, his thoughts jump straight to the
big one, Bathurst. Or, more specifically, the brake issue
that slowed him late in the race.
“Would you believe me if I told you I only drove about
12 laps towards the end there with the brake pedal on
the floor?” he says. “(It happened) when I went across
the top of the hill, across McPhillamy. The moment I
went down through the Dipper the pedal went down to
the floor. I thought, ‘Shit! I’ve got to turn left at the end
of this corner!’ I was ready to throw it into first gear, I
can assure you of that!”
The team orders that followed, sealing the Moffat-
Bond one-two running order, have generated plenty of
debate over the years, but to Moffat it’s all pretty simple.
If there had been a threat to the team victory, he would
have let Bond go. With their nearest rivals more than a
lap behind, the pressure was off and the ultimate form
finish could be enacted.
“I was conscious of the one-two aspect even before I had
no brakes, we were so far ahead of everyone else,” he says.
“I was already slowing down and trying to close the gap.
At one stage I had a full lap ahead of him (Bond). I wanted
him up with me so we could get the one-two finish. So he
was second in command. He was there and as long as I
was in front and keeping going, I wasn’t getting on the
phone going, ‘By the way, mate, I haven’t got any brakes
so, you know, you better come up and catch me’. It was
really only with about four laps to go that he got up to
the me.”
In any case, says Moffat, the final call was made out on
the track. There was nothing stopping Bond from nipping
in front of his team boss, but he respected the deal.
“We get up to that last little bridge,” says Moffat,
using his hands to illustrate the two Falcons’ relative
positions.
“I’m already in first gear because I didn’t need to
bother fucking around with the brake pedal, I didn’t
have one! And Colin’s come down here like this, and
I’m here and he’s there, and we’re trying to go around
the bend. I remember saying to myself, ‘I’m sending you
a telegraphic message, back off, we’re going around the
corner together!’ and, well, he did back off and we came
around the corner like that.
“By the time we got to the last straight we were
already like that [places one hand slightly in front of
the other] and Colin never went to pass and that’s how
we finished. And to this day the photographs show the
number one of my car and the number two of his, the
best bloody form finish of all time!”
While competitive angst between teammates is
common today, Moffat says it wasn’t a factor in 1977.
“Colin was never anything other than pleasant about
it,” says Moffat. “I was in charge of the team and he very
gracious about it. He’d got more money that year than
he’d ever seen in his life!”THE BELGIAN ACE
Another potential Bathurst victory to go with his 1969
success wasn’t the only thing Bond missed out on that
October weekend in 1977. Thanks to Moffat’s team-
mate, Belgian multiple grand prix and Le Mans winner“I WAS CONSCIOUS
OF THE ONE-TWOASPECT EVEN BEFORE
I HAD NO BRAKES, WE
WERE SO FAR AHEAD
OF EVERYONE ELSE.”- ALLAN MOFFAT
ABOVE: The #2 entry running
ahead of the #1. There was
no question about which
would be leading by the end
of the race, though.