1:18 Biante Holden Vk Commodore Group A 1986 ETCC SPA 24HR - #5 Mobil- Drivers Peter Brock/Allan Moffat/John Harvey

1:18 Biante Vk Commodore 1986 ETCC #5 Mobil- Drivers Peter Brock/Allan Moffat The mid-1980s saw the height of international touring car racing with the Group A rules of the time opening the door for teams, drivers and manufacturers to ply their trade up against the best from all over the world. In the case of Australian teams, the factory Mobil Holden Dealer Team spent 1985 (the first year of Group A rules) coming to grips with the new version of the VK Commodore. An evolution model was produced in time for the 1986 season, which saw team boss Peter Brock and his HDT squad (as well as privateer Allan Grice) plan a Commodore attack on the European Touring Car Championship and the jewel in its crown, the Spa 24 Hour on August 2/3. The ‘Bathurst’ of European touring car racing, the Spa ‘twice around the clock’ classic would prove the toughest test imaginable for the V8 Commodore as well as the team running it. After competing in ETCC rounds at Monza, Donington and Hockenheim with Brock and Allan Moffat driving, the Mobil team debuted a brand new car for the Spa event with Brock’s long-time HDT right-hand-man John Harvey joining as third pilot in the #5 entry. The car used in the earlier ETCC rounds was re-numbered #6 with Kiwis Neal Lowe, Kent Baigent and Graeme Bowkett taking on the driving duties. The lead Mobil entry qualified 13th overall in the 60-car field with Brock setting the time. The #5 Commodore’s lap of 2m41.95s was just over four seconds slower than the pole-winning lap recorded by the factory Rover of Tom Walkinshaw. Up against the might of the Volvos, Rovers, BMWs and Fords it was going to be a tough race, let alone the challenging, high-speed Belgian track and the sheer length of the event. Brock began the race aboard the #5 Commodore and slowly worked his way forward, lying in seventh place at the end of the opening hour. But the good start would soon come to naught as the King of the Mountain wheeled into the Spa pit lane with a blown head gasket. It would take near on two hours for the Mobil HDT crew to get the car back out onto the circuit, rejoining in a heart-breaking 52nd position. From this point on all hopes of victories, podiums or even top 10 results were gone, the team instead simply focused on finishing the race. The #5 entry was 47th at the six-hour mark and Brock later survived a spin in the dark that left the VK with some damage to the left rear and a few front-end dents, though nothing that hampered the mechanicals. The Spa race would prove to be a test of the HDT pit crew as much as it was of the drivers and car for the Brock/Moffat/Harvey car would be back in the pits again with a flooded carburetor, though this only delayed them a handful of minutes, rather than the hours that the head gasket had cost them. An alternator problem would strike in the morning, though by the 18-hour mark they would have worked their way back up to 29th place outright. The final six hours, effectively the same distance as a Bathurst 1000, would see further drama for the Commodore brigade, with another head gasket letting go in the #5 car at 1.00pm. The accident during the previous night had meant the car lost an oil cooler, one of the ones mounted horizontally, which meant it was by-passed (as would occur later in the year at Bathurst) rather than being disconnected. Moffat had noticed the car’s temperatures were ok during the evening but had been creeping up once the new day had broken. He was behind the wheel and back on the track after another hour and a half in the pits while the problem was attended to. The King’s Cup manufacturer’s award became the focus for the Holden runners with all three Commodores that started still running, albeit delayed by a range of problems. But just as the #5 entry was returning to the fray, the Kiwi-driven #6 car had the death rattles, another head gasket problem. Lowe was sent back out onto the circuit and instructed to park at the exit of La Source hairpin before the start/finish line as the clock counted down to the end of 24 hours. Moffat and Grice collected the all-but dead third Commodore and the three of them rolled across the line three-abreast to the roar of the crowd to claim a prestigious prize for Holden; the King’s Cup. Come the end of the Spa classic, the #5 Commodore was classified 22nd overall and had completed a total of 412 laps, 87 behind the winning Schnitzer BMW 635 CSi of Dieter Quester, Altfrid Heger and Thierry Tassin. “Sure, we were disappointed but we can sit down and say, ‘Well that was a hell of an experience. Let’s have a few beers and be thankful that we ever came here,’” said Brock post-race. While they had not claimed overall victory and had been forced to concede defeat to the Europeans on their home turf, the Australians had claimed a special trophy and written a unique chapter in local touring car racing on the world scene that will never be repeated again.