MR VERSATILITY

Colin Bond was the ‘Mr Versatility’ of Australian motorsport, winning major touring car and rally titles in a career that spanned four decades. We sat done with Bond to reflect on an incredible career, from hillclimbs and rallying into touring cars.

On transitioning from hillclimbs and rallying into touring cars.

“My hillclimb car was basically a proper race car, which we hill-climbed and raced as well, plus the rally side of things. But it wasn’t until 1969 that we had a competitive car and went to Bathurst and won it, of course.

“I think that in Australia, you realise that if you try to make a professional living out of it, you virtually had to do it in a touring car. In the beginning, Formula 5000 and all that sort of stuff were probably the dominant categories, but it was in the early 1970s that touring cars really kicked on.

“There were people who were making a living out of it but not many because you virtually had to get involved with a manufacturer to cement the fact that you could possibly do it.

“We were fortunate in 1969 when Harry Firth took over the Holden Dealer Team and we ran Bathurst full length for the first time and won that, while Peter Brock and Dessie West came third. After that Harry picked up myself and Peter and I was with them the next seven years.”

On signing with the Holden Dealer Team. “We rallied against Harry for many years, even though we were in the little Colt and he was in his Cortina, so he knew of me and I think Mike Kable mentioned to Harry at one stage that we also did a bit of racing and he asked me if I would go and do Sandown with Spencer Martin.

“But I had a commitment to go to New Guinea to do a rally up there on the same weekend, so I didn’t do that.

“I then did a bit of testing for them at Amaroo and was quicker than all the other guys there in the Monaro. It was a standard Monaro and the other guys had their cars there, ready for Bathurst, and when we went to Bathurst, there was Tony Roberts and myself who were both rally drivers.

“After practice, I think we were in seventh spot because the Falcons all had race tyres on and we were just running on Michelins in those days, but as the race turned out, they all had problems with their race tyres and we came first and Peter was third. That sort of kicked us on.

“After Bathurst, I don’t think much was said, just the next race you’re going to go to is Lakeside.

“In those days, Peter being in Melbourne and I living in Sydney, we finished up doing a lot of races in Sydney, at Oran Park and Amaroo Park, and Peter started doing the ones Melbourne, which were Calders and so on and across to Adelaide. I’d go up and do some of the ones in Queensland as well.

“I don’t even think we were actually being paid a retainer. We were living on prize money in those days and when you went and worked on the car, you were being paid $20 a day or something like that.

But we had no expenses, so we sort of went on and it slowly got better over time.”

On winning Bathurst in 1969.

“It was very important because up until then, even though we’d been racing for years, you sort of spent your own money and you went and did your own thing like all the hillclimbs and rallies. Then you’ve got a factory drive and you win it, and that makes it very easy after that because it’s just sort of cements you in to the team and away you go.”

On racing a variety of machinery in different disciplines.

“I’d never found it difficult and I’m not the only person in the world who does that. Jimmy Richards is quite capable and so was Peter Brock in a lot of ways, George Fury and a few others. I just sort of think that you assess it when you get in it and you did your best – and often it’s not too bad.

“I enjoy rallying, we did it for a long time, but with rallying, because you were on the dirt, if you really, really try hard, you went faster. And to me, when you’re on a circuit, sometimes you try harder and go slower.

“Racing was all about being a bit more precise; you had to just do everything nicely, brake, turn in, get the power on, don’t use up all the tyres and things and all the rest that’s required.

“In rallying, you take it and you grab hold of the thing by the throat, sliding this way and that way. And to me, it’s just a bit more satisfying; the fact that if you actually try harder, you’re going faster.”

On Harry Firth and the Holden Dealer Team.

“Everything was done Harry’s way. I think he was quite brilliant in his early days, but as it got towards the end, with the time I was with them, I think technology was starting to take over, as with everything.

“We’d go out and test at Calder and he’d come in and change springs and shocks and things and you’d just go by feel, whereas later on, it was definitely more on the technical side of things where you’d be engineered.

“When I went across to Allan Moffat’s team in 1977 and we had Carol Smith, everything was a little bit more organised. For example, if we went to do a test day, he had it planned out before you actually went: what we were going to test and how we were going to do it. But apart from all that, I think that they were good days; we won three rally championships and manufacturers’ championships and in touring cars, so it wasn’t bad.”

On moving to Allan Moffat Racing.

“Allan offered us more money and a better deal. And the thing was that he said he was getting Carol Smith as the team manager so, as it turned out, we had a fantastic year.

“We were first and second in the championship, first and second at Bathurst. Holden had a bad year, so they came out with the A9X and it was a better mousetrap than what we had, so it became a little bit more difficult.”

On the one-two formation finish at Bathurst in 1977. “I should’ve easily won it. The only mixed emotions is that Alan Hamilton was my co-driver, so we missed out on winning Bathurst, which is what I think he deserved.

“There were some orders. Carol came out with a sign to form finish one-two and it was pretty obvious what it was and what happened. Allan was paying the bills, so you do it. I could’ve gone ahead and overtaken because he didn’t have any brakes. He’d worn the front brakes out completely, when Jacky Ickx wore most of the pads off and then when Moff got in, he wore off the rest of the pads, then the backing plates and then the pistons. So we were catching him 10 seconds a lap and had to slow down and just brake for him on the last lap.

“Moffat did a few things after that which weren’t quite pleasant but, still, that’s all water under the bridge now.”

On racing the Alfa Romeo GTV6 in Group A.

“It was very reliable and not a bad car. We had Alan Jones driving one of the cars as well, before Alan was on his way back to Formula 1, and it was great just to have him on site to see how fast you could make one of these cars go. But when you went to places like Bathurst, you were never going to catch the turbo Volvos and all the rest of the cars that were on it in those days. A bit like the XU-1 Toranas, you needed the V8 to stay with the Fords.”

On the Ford Sierra RS500.

“Turbocharging was fairly new to us all in those days. Dick Johnson’s team were a bit more advanced than what we were as far as what they could do with the cars.

“I found them to be bit of a hand grenade in the end, because there were some better blocks around which were not available to most of us. And if you kept them under 500 horsepower, they seemed to live, but once you got over 500 horsepower, it was a matter of how far it’d go before they would bloody blow up.

“We had some good wins with them, but everyone had Sierras at one stage – and then it started to become a little bit harder. At the end of the day, the team with the most money wins. That’s a shame but that’s the way it is.”

On being driving standards observer for V8 Supercars. “I used to say it’s exactly the same as being a referee at a football match. You don’t make the rules; you only apply the rules and the same with a football match. If you ping one team, the other team thinks it’s terrific and vice versa.

“There were only Fords and Holdens when we were doing it and if you pinged a Holden, the Ford guys thought it was terrific and the Holden guys thought it was a bad decision, but you have to realise that we did have a lot of information. We not only had all the data from the cars, we had cameras in the cars and all that sort of stuff, which people really wouldn’t see.

“I did it for a decade, so the rules kept changing. But I think my biggest problem was that when we were racing, we never had those sorts of rules; we never had to because the cars were all different, we all had different tyres, we all had different ratios.”