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[island]

Hi!
Three second places at Surfers Paradise,
Warwick Farm and Sandown must have been
a bit frustrating for him. He had the works
Lola, after all. Do you remember his Warwick
Farm drive, Ray? Did he put some pressure
on Matich? Gardner`s fastest race lap was
1.24.0, I have read. Clearly faster than
Matich`s 1.25.9 pole.

[Ray Bell]

Matich had a fifteen second break on Bartlett by lap ten, then Gardner passed his old buddy for second a few laps later. Matich cruised in (hence allowing Gardner to take the lap record) a cool 18 seconds ahead at the flag, setting a new race record for the 101.5 miles at 94.85mph.
But this is insufficient for you to correctly judge the cirumstances... sure, Matich's pole time was 1:25.9, but it was set on a track that was rapidly getting greasy as a shower came in to moisten the practice session right from its beginning.
The Friday unofficial practice had seen Matich do a 1:23.3, even faster than Rindt's legendary time in 1969 with the high wings. His record from the previous December was 1:24.6 after a 1:24.3 pole time.
Finally, for the Hordern Trophy of 1972, Matich took the official time down to that same 1:23.3... that was the best ever.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...