Saturday Sleuthing: Brocky's Mobil Sierra

MentionPeter Brock and Australian racing fans will instantly recall his heroics in Holdens of all kinds.

But there was a time when the King of the Mountain raced a turbocharged Ford Sierra in 1989 and 1990 in an era where the four-cylinder turbo rocket was the 'must-have' car if you wanted to win in Group A touring car racing.

V8 Sleuth Aaron Noonan has had plenty of email in the last 12 months asking about Brock's Sierra and today he delivers - read on to find out where it has ended up!

The Sierra we're focusing on today is the one Brock raced for the majority of his time in the turbo cars.

While Brock originally imported two ex-Andy Rouse Engineering Sierras from the UK for the beginning of the 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship, a new chassis was built later that season by Dencar in Melbourne.

Chassis number BRT S1 (BRT stood for Brock Racing Team) was debuted at Sandown in the appropriately named .05 500 by Brock and Paul Radisich.

The new #05 won the start and led through to the first pit stop, before it retired with a broken front strut.

For Bathurst, Brock enlisted four-time British Touring Car Champion and Sierra specialist Rouse as co-driver in our featured car.

Brock hustled the Sierra to his first Bathurst pole in six years, which would also prove to be the last of his career (and yes, we know he started the 1997 V8 race form pole but the car had been qualified by Mark Skaife!).

Controversially though, his time of 2m15.80s - almost a full second quicker than Johnson - was set with the on-board fire extinguisher mounted in front of the car's intercooler, the resultant chemical spray causing outcry from rivals who deemed it as keeping the turbocharger cool and increasing horsepower.

The Mobil team copped a slap on the wrists from the entrant's group and was fined $5000 for what it being deemed against the spirit of the rules.

In the race the car was put out of contention after the team struggled to remove the right rear wheel during a pit stop. Incorrectly sized dowels on the hub caused the centre lock wheel to fix itself to the hub, which left the team with no option other than to cut the wheel off and retire from the race.

Brock then ran the car in the Grand Prix support races at Adelaide and in the end-of-season Nissan Mobil Series in New Zealand, where Brock and Radisich combined to win the series overall after finishing fourth and second respectively at the Wellington street circuit and Pukekohe.

During the 1990 ATCC, Brock mounted a strong challenge for the title but the Sierra's Bridgestone tyres struggled to go along for the ride in the early rounds.

Symmons Plains' second round was a good example, as Brock bolted at the start and led early until Johnson zeroed in on his rear bumper. After a spirited duel between the classic rivals, Johnson surged ahead and Brock held on for second.

For Round 5 at Lakeside, Brock finished second with a distinctive new exhaust layout, which exited from the rear of the car and pumped out unusually large amounts of smoke when Brock lifted the throttle.

The V8 Sleuth recently caught up with long-time Brock mechanic John Heckrath who says the reason for the modification was that Brock didn't like the noise, so much so that he even wore noise-cancelling earphones during the races! The team only used this exhaust layout until the end of the ATCC as it was said to drain excessive oil out of the engine.

Brock's only win of the 1990 ATCC came at Wanneroo - and at the perfect time to give him a sniff of taking the championship, which eventually fell to Jim Richards. Bridgestone had worked hard on improving its Sierra-suitable tyre stocks and from second on the grid he made a flying start and was never headed.

According to Heckrath, Brock finished the Perth race with a cooked turbo but the resultant lack of boost saved the tyres!

Brock and Andrew Miedecke paired up in #05 for the Sandown 500, where the car was sidelined early after the front suspension strut fell out.

Brock cross-entered into the second car (#6) of Charlie O'Brien/David 'Skippy' Parsons and drove a marathon double-stint to finish second, while the repaired #05 continued in the hands of Miedecke and Parsons to finish fourth and 10 laps down in an attrition-filled race.

Rouse returned for Bathurst to partner Brock and the Englishman crashed spectacularly in practice when he tripped over Matt Wacker in Murray Carter's Sierra, careering on two wheels into the fence at the Dipper. During the race both Mobil machines again battled blistering tyres but Brock and Rouse fought on strongly to finish fourth.

Brock then ran in the car in the Adelaide Grand Prix support races and paired up with Miedecke again for the Nissan 500 - the inaugural race at the brand new Eastern Creek Raceway where they finished third, before taking out another Nissan Mobil Series with a second (Wellington) and a win (Pukekohe).

At the end of 1990, the team placed its Sierra inventory on the market as Brock would reunite with Larry Perkins in a two-car, VN Commodore assault for 1991.

Midway through '91, BRT S1 was sold to the man who still owns the car to this day - Mike Steele.

The Western Australian purchased the car and entered the Wanneroo round of the 1992 ATCC where it appeared still in its Mobil base livery and carrying #24. He withdrew from the meeting after practice when the Sierra split the bore but later raced it in the Wanneroo 300 and a number of state-level events. He last raced it at Wanneroo in May 1994.

He set about restoring the car around 10 years ago, but it has sat idle ever since and is currently a shell in his Perth workshop.

Steele says he maintains a keen interest in the car and still intends to restore it, with a view to one day running in the burgeoning Heritage Touring Cars category for Historic Group A and C touring cars.

Steele also purchased another Sierra from Brock's team in 1991 - six months before he bought BRT S1. It was another Dencar-built Sierra that was originally built for Miedecke to replace the Kenwood Sierra he crashed at Adelaide in 1989 but never raced. Steele says he recently sold this car back to Miedecke.

There are a few other stories on the histories of the other Brock Mobil Sierras - which gives us an excuse to continue this story another time down the track...

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