Cripes it's hard to find a decent newsagent these days!
The 'economic migrants' (ECOMIGs) who tend to buy them torch them with Agent Orange leaving nothing of value left. Anyway, I did find one in Collins Place (Melbourne) with AMC, it even had some of the better Pommie mags, but it has a For Sale sign up. A wonderful opportunity for an ECOMIG to buy it, torch it, and employ a bored disinterested student to collect Lotto fees without the undue clutter of interesting stock.
End of rant.
Thoroughly enjoyed #132, even the taxi-shite. Team Party House and Tiepermann, top marks. It's great that AMC, as it did from the start, provide good word limits for even the obscure, to cover them properly. That's rare.
It's amazing value at $10.99 too, the page/ad ratio is a tiny 20%. The number of happy-snaps in each article is a journos wet dream as well. Berghouse (whoever it is these days) owns them so Normoyle throws them around like confetti - and doesn't have to pay for them. Big competitive advantage.
A few things.
Arnel's FF Lola was/is a T440. Geoff Brabham's 274 was, I think, the ex-Neil Rear 274-018, a low mileage, late build car outta WA not Leo's 274-015. Alfie bought that car and thereby relaunched his career. With a bit more luck (read better preparation) Alf probably would have won the '75 title, arguably he was the quickest pilot that year, and given his relative experience to Geoff and Andrew you would have expected him to be.
I don't think it's right to say Miedecke was "Overlooked by Birrana either...". By the end of 1974 Birrana had finished building cars in production batches, so it wasn't in their interest to support him or anyone else. He could have bought one second hand of course, but I thought he chose a Rennmax in search of competitive advantage, rather than 'best available alternative'. Maybe Ray can speak to Bob about the why's and wherefores about this.
Minor niggles in a truly grouse piece!
'Bloody Leffo' and the P8. Here was Joycey's chance, Bob Jane had the money but Castrol diverted it to fuggin maxi-taxis. Now Leffo had some loot...here was a second chance for the P8 F5000, and he was a Bowin believer. Don't forget that by the end of 1974 the P8 F2 was pretty much the quickest car out there despite the Birranas having 2-3 years of ongoing development.
IF ONLY it was an el-cheapo Repco-Holden he came upon, rather than an Alan Smith Chev (??), the P8 could have slotted into the chassis as John Joyce designed and built it, rather than as Leffo and his boys adapted it. The critical bit was mating the engine and chassis, that was sub-optimal and the handling suffered accordingly. Other shortcomings including exhausts up in the airstream- affecting flow to the rear wing - and much bigger radiators/pods, both of which cost revs.
And yes, as a Bowin Tragic, I am biased, hopelessly so...
PS; Leffo clearly was a rising or variable rate suspension convert (Bowin's P6 and P8), the T400 Lola he chose was so equipped, and the T400's fan-club wasn't a big one amongst the F5000 elite
Edited by MarkBisset, 10 September 2022 - 07:42.
