Hi!
Did anyone see his jump start? How close
did he come to make up the one-minute-
penalty on Warwick Brown`s red T430?
Did Jones have a real chance?
Alan Jones - 1977 AGP at Oran Park
Started by
island
, Apr 07 2000 20:10
7 replies to this topic
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#2
Dennis David
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Posted 07 April 2000 - 20:21
On another note, I remember meeting someone on the outskirts of Melbourne who knew Jones and more so his Dad. What can people tell me about him?
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Dennis David
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Life is racing, the rest is waiting
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Regards,
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/
#3
Ray Bell
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Posted 08 April 2000 - 05:05
Was anyone there? Barry and I were, at least, and I know I saw the start. He got a ripper - but the flag was still in the air. I wrote of it "he slowed, but realising that the starter was carrying on with the job and that he now had an extra minute to make up he soon got underway again"
He finished forty seconds ahead of Brown, but let's not forget that Brown had been robbed of the AGP when in a commanding lead at the same circuit three years before, and he was unassailably in second place (it was his team mate behind him). Brown had also taken pole..
As for Stan Jones, I never had a chance to observe him, though he was in one race I attended. But Peter Brock mentioned him the first time we ever met, saying he had the best lines of any driver he'd seen. Brock could fairly be said to be a bit of an expert on lines...
Alan is pretty uncomplimentary about his dad when he gets down to talking about him, for he had personal faults that included whisky (or rum or bourbon or something) and he spent his last years in exile in England due to debts incurred when his car dealership went bad (or something like that).
But this man drove with the best of them and was a legend in Australian racing in the fifties. He did race until 1964 spasmodically, but his glory years ended with his AGP victory in 1959.
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Life and love are mixed with pain...
He finished forty seconds ahead of Brown, but let's not forget that Brown had been robbed of the AGP when in a commanding lead at the same circuit three years before, and he was unassailably in second place (it was his team mate behind him). Brown had also taken pole..
As for Stan Jones, I never had a chance to observe him, though he was in one race I attended. But Peter Brock mentioned him the first time we ever met, saying he had the best lines of any driver he'd seen. Brock could fairly be said to be a bit of an expert on lines...
Alan is pretty uncomplimentary about his dad when he gets down to talking about him, for he had personal faults that included whisky (or rum or bourbon or something) and he spent his last years in exile in England due to debts incurred when his car dealership went bad (or something like that).
But this man drove with the best of them and was a legend in Australian racing in the fifties. He did race until 1964 spasmodically, but his glory years ended with his AGP victory in 1959.
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Life and love are mixed with pain...
#4
Barry Lake
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Posted 08 April 2000 - 07:41
I suppose I did see Stan Jones race quite a few times come to think of it - from 1952 in a Cooper Mk IV 1100, through to the Cooper Climaxes at Warwick Farm in the 1960s.
Thinking of "the best lines" reminds me of him in the Maserati 250F at Bathurst - very neat and fast indeed.
I remember, too, Alan Jones' infamous jumped start at Oran Park. I remember a feeling of fear when he propped! I thought, what if he sits there, confused about what to do, or stalls the engine, and the starter doesn't see him, and drops the flag to let the rest of the field go?
But also, speaking of lines and Peter Brock, I remember following the Dulux Rally in the early 1970s when Colin Bond and Peter Brock were team-mates in HDT Toranas.
On the circuits, more so on the hillclimbs, and by a long way in the rally stages, Colin was so much neater than Brock there was no comparison.
Brock, then, was very much a charger, jumping over apexes and lurching here and there. As quick as, sometimes quicker than Bond, he was nowhere near as polished at that stage in his career.
I asked Harry Firth in recent times why it was that Brock rose so much higher than Bond in later years. He said, "Brock knew how to listen and he did what he was told".
Someone else close to Brock over the years, even more recently, translated that to me as, "He knew how to suck up to the right people".
Regardless, Brock developed into one of the most precise drivers around, never pushed and barged other drivers, and his record at Bathurst might last forever.
Thinking of "the best lines" reminds me of him in the Maserati 250F at Bathurst - very neat and fast indeed.
I remember, too, Alan Jones' infamous jumped start at Oran Park. I remember a feeling of fear when he propped! I thought, what if he sits there, confused about what to do, or stalls the engine, and the starter doesn't see him, and drops the flag to let the rest of the field go?
But also, speaking of lines and Peter Brock, I remember following the Dulux Rally in the early 1970s when Colin Bond and Peter Brock were team-mates in HDT Toranas.
On the circuits, more so on the hillclimbs, and by a long way in the rally stages, Colin was so much neater than Brock there was no comparison.
Brock, then, was very much a charger, jumping over apexes and lurching here and there. As quick as, sometimes quicker than Bond, he was nowhere near as polished at that stage in his career.
I asked Harry Firth in recent times why it was that Brock rose so much higher than Bond in later years. He said, "Brock knew how to listen and he did what he was told".
Someone else close to Brock over the years, even more recently, translated that to me as, "He knew how to suck up to the right people".
Regardless, Brock developed into one of the most precise drivers around, never pushed and barged other drivers, and his record at Bathurst might last forever.
#5
Ray Bell
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Posted 09 April 2000 - 04:07
Your comments are at odds with a lot of others, Barry.
Firth made it quite plain to me that Brock's failure at Bathurst in 1974 (remember, when they had a six-lap lead at half distance!) was due to him NOT listening. Harry reckoned he went out when he was told to take it easy and set his fastest laps, then holed a piston (that would have made it ten wins, had he listened).
It's a natural that Colin (then at the very height of his career, the subject of yet another story) would be smoother in hillclimbs - he knew them well and had competed for years on them. But I ask you, which driver crashed out in the 1972 Bathurst race and which one won? In those greasy conditions, surely precision was necessary in large quantities, and Moffat ran off the road trying to stay with him too.
Finally, go to Wherrett's words about the Austin A30.. he describes it as a dog of a car (this was an abortionate thing Brock started racing in, for those who came in late), and mentions how Ross Bond (no relation, but the buyer of the car) found it very difficult. Wherrett ends his story saying "..I came away wondering about this Peter Brock.."
The point I make is that it was January, 1966 that Brock made that remark about Arnold Ahrenfeld ('he's got the best line through there.' At Savva's hairpin, between Craven A and Bosch), and went on to talk about lines and Jones. Just weeks later his friends told me how much faster and neater he was than they in the post-meeting events at Tarrawingee (you know, the races held in the dark, dodging the sheep that had been let back in), and he was immediately fast in the A30 - a year and a half after we met - and almost immediately impressing Firth and others.
Don't forget, Brock started racing quite late (22 yrs 6 mths), but had done an enormous amount of very fast road driving (like you could in the good old days).
I don't want to sound like I put him on a pedestal, but I do feel you have underrated him in his early career.
Frank Kilfoyle, who should just about be a mate of yours, told me that his first encounter with Brock showed him to be very precise... he was the co-driver in the Dulux Rally, way back in 1972. Please read his quote in my book about Brock, and that of Doug Chivas, who I know you respect.
He said: "Going back a number of years (from 1979), I consider he was the best potential driver. I remember saying this to Harry Firth, who was treating him as a second driver at the time. With regard to his style, I have always felt that he is the best 'line driver' in the country. Before Bathurst in 1973 we did four laps together at Oran Park and I had the pleasure of sitting with him as he did sub-50 second laps. His entries were clean, his lines and exits were spot on, the same every time. He does it so easily he staggers me, he's just bloody brilliant."
Now, for the sake of our American cousins, Peter Brock is the unrecognised face you seen in the Mobil 1 ads on TV there.
With all that, I probably know better than anybody that he has faults. But they are all personal and don't - to my knowledge - show up in his racing. Except perhaps for that 1974 episode with Harry.
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Life and love are mixed with pain...
Firth made it quite plain to me that Brock's failure at Bathurst in 1974 (remember, when they had a six-lap lead at half distance!) was due to him NOT listening. Harry reckoned he went out when he was told to take it easy and set his fastest laps, then holed a piston (that would have made it ten wins, had he listened).
It's a natural that Colin (then at the very height of his career, the subject of yet another story) would be smoother in hillclimbs - he knew them well and had competed for years on them. But I ask you, which driver crashed out in the 1972 Bathurst race and which one won? In those greasy conditions, surely precision was necessary in large quantities, and Moffat ran off the road trying to stay with him too.
Finally, go to Wherrett's words about the Austin A30.. he describes it as a dog of a car (this was an abortionate thing Brock started racing in, for those who came in late), and mentions how Ross Bond (no relation, but the buyer of the car) found it very difficult. Wherrett ends his story saying "..I came away wondering about this Peter Brock.."
The point I make is that it was January, 1966 that Brock made that remark about Arnold Ahrenfeld ('he's got the best line through there.' At Savva's hairpin, between Craven A and Bosch), and went on to talk about lines and Jones. Just weeks later his friends told me how much faster and neater he was than they in the post-meeting events at Tarrawingee (you know, the races held in the dark, dodging the sheep that had been let back in), and he was immediately fast in the A30 - a year and a half after we met - and almost immediately impressing Firth and others.
Don't forget, Brock started racing quite late (22 yrs 6 mths), but had done an enormous amount of very fast road driving (like you could in the good old days).
I don't want to sound like I put him on a pedestal, but I do feel you have underrated him in his early career.
Frank Kilfoyle, who should just about be a mate of yours, told me that his first encounter with Brock showed him to be very precise... he was the co-driver in the Dulux Rally, way back in 1972. Please read his quote in my book about Brock, and that of Doug Chivas, who I know you respect.
He said: "Going back a number of years (from 1979), I consider he was the best potential driver. I remember saying this to Harry Firth, who was treating him as a second driver at the time. With regard to his style, I have always felt that he is the best 'line driver' in the country. Before Bathurst in 1973 we did four laps together at Oran Park and I had the pleasure of sitting with him as he did sub-50 second laps. His entries were clean, his lines and exits were spot on, the same every time. He does it so easily he staggers me, he's just bloody brilliant."
Now, for the sake of our American cousins, Peter Brock is the unrecognised face you seen in the Mobil 1 ads on TV there.
With all that, I probably know better than anybody that he has faults. But they are all personal and don't - to my knowledge - show up in his racing. Except perhaps for that 1974 episode with Harry.
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Life and love are mixed with pain...
#6
Barry Lake
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Posted 09 April 2000 - 16:29
Whoooaaa!!!
That got you going, Ray.
I should try some more of that.
I wasn't, however, trying to denigrate Brock's driving, as I pointed out at the end of that posting. I was merely recalling what I saw at that time and relaying what people had said to me.
The single event that showed Brock's greatness, I think, was the 1979 Repco Trial. He went out and beat a lot of top rally drivers at their own game in what was a very tough event.
There were contributing factors, he did a hell of a lot of testing and practice, and he had a couple of unbelievably lucky breaks during the event when disaster was imminent (three occasions immediately come to mind).
He also had a couple of good team mates in the car, who had all the rest of the preparation/navigating/co-driving sewn up.
But the fact is he went out there and he did it, just like he went out and won Bathurst 10 times.
However, (and again, I'm not knocking, just asking) have you ever analysed why his Australian Touring Car Championship record is not particularly impressive - in terms of championships contested to championships won?
I often have meant to sit down and go through it all to see why - perhaps you already have.
[This message has been edited by Barry Lake (edited 04-09-2000).]
That got you going, Ray.
I should try some more of that.
I wasn't, however, trying to denigrate Brock's driving, as I pointed out at the end of that posting. I was merely recalling what I saw at that time and relaying what people had said to me.
The single event that showed Brock's greatness, I think, was the 1979 Repco Trial. He went out and beat a lot of top rally drivers at their own game in what was a very tough event.
There were contributing factors, he did a hell of a lot of testing and practice, and he had a couple of unbelievably lucky breaks during the event when disaster was imminent (three occasions immediately come to mind).
He also had a couple of good team mates in the car, who had all the rest of the preparation/navigating/co-driving sewn up.
But the fact is he went out there and he did it, just like he went out and won Bathurst 10 times.
However, (and again, I'm not knocking, just asking) have you ever analysed why his Australian Touring Car Championship record is not particularly impressive - in terms of championships contested to championships won?
I often have meant to sit down and go through it all to see why - perhaps you already have.
[This message has been edited by Barry Lake (edited 04-09-2000).]
#7
Barry Lake
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Posted 09 April 2000 - 16:32
By the way, the Americans have their own Peter Brock - apparently also very gifted at car preparation and driving.
Maybe some of our American friends can fill us in on his career.
Maybe some of our American friends can fill us in on his career.
#8
Ray Bell
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Posted 09 April 2000 - 18:25
He didn't contest the ATCC until after he won his first Bathurst, then he missed one season virtually altogether due to his Le Mans effort, had a hit and miss attempt at the next before getting back into stride the Bill Patterson year. How he was beaten by Morris is unclear to me... except when you know a little about the preparer (between what lines? Ask Elwyn).
Didn't the '79 title become secondary to that Repco Trial and its preparation?
Later years he was twice, at least, spending the ATCC learning how to run the cars he'd switched to, and one of them was no good for the job.
Not perfect answers, but put on top of that the fact that the 1000km race gave him a chance to bring out his greatest attributes, an opportunity to drag out the opposition and get them fighting each other, then to slip back and wait for them to break, so that he could go on, set fastest lap on the final tour, and win the event.
Perhaps also the Bathurst circuit with its unique demands was more deserving of his precision?
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Life and love are mixed with pain...
Didn't the '79 title become secondary to that Repco Trial and its preparation?
Later years he was twice, at least, spending the ATCC learning how to run the cars he'd switched to, and one of them was no good for the job.
Not perfect answers, but put on top of that the fact that the 1000km race gave him a chance to bring out his greatest attributes, an opportunity to drag out the opposition and get them fighting each other, then to slip back and wait for them to break, so that he could go on, set fastest lap on the final tour, and win the event.
Perhaps also the Bathurst circuit with its unique demands was more deserving of his precision?
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Life and love are mixed with pain...
