Peter Brock - dead (reports)

[Blitzkrieg]

A heartfelt tribute from Brocky's fiercest rival Allan Moffat:

Moffat on Brock - from the heart

Words - Geoffrey Harris

Allan Moffat and Peter Brock barely spoke amid the fiercest rivalry in Australian motor sport, in the 1970s. Years later mutual respect blossomed into friendship and today, 24 hours after Brock's death, Moffat has spoken emotionally of "a treasure"

Moffat says that, despite any public perceptions, he and Brock were never enemies.

Rivals most certainly. Enemies most certainly not.

These two giants of touring car racing were chalk and cheese. Brock immensely talented, with an uncanny mechanical sympathy, and an easy way with the fans. Moffat intense, methodical, totally focused on the racing and oblivious to much around him.

They burst on the scene simultaneously in the late 1960s, representing Holden and Ford respectively. They became synonymous with those makes and they became national heroes as they dueled on the country's racetracks, most notably Mt Panorama at Bathurst.

"When we each went to Bathurst the first time in 1969 he didn't know my name, and I didn't know his name," Moffat recalls.

"He was to be my bad news, and I was his bad news. But we had a rapport on the track. He didn't crash into me and I didn't crash into him. In 25 years I can only recall two scrapes."

Brock was to win Bathurst nine times, Moffat four. Yet, in many ways, they were equals, although in terms of public popularity Brock was the runaway winner.

Moffat admits now that, in warmly embracing the public, Brock was a lesson to other race drivers, "including myself".

"The rest of us buried ourselves in our transporters, but Peter always had time for the fans," Moffat says.

"While we had a couple of thousand fans, he had a couple of hundred thousand fans."

Moffat has no trouble admitting that Brock was unbelievably gifted, and says he could nurse an ailing car to the finish line in a way no other driver could. Nor did he crash anywhere near as often as others.

"Holden didn't need a budget for spares with Brock," Moffat says.

The Ford legend was at Winton in northern Victoria watching one of his sons, Andrew, test a Falcon when he got word on Friday of Brock's fatal crash. Like the rest of the nation, he was stunned and could not bring himself to answer or return calls.

Composed today as he realises the nation wants to hear his thoughts, he fronts the television cameras, the press photographers and journalists, and does a round of radio interviews.

Towards the end the emotion starts to show. "Peter Brock will never be gone in my mind," Moffat says. "He will remain a treasure in my heart."

Moffat has special memories of him and Brock racing as teammates briefly in the '80s, particularly in Europe.

And he predicts that Bathurst, that "temple" on the mountain, will be a winner from Brock's death. That his legacy will be future generations of young drivers going there aspiring to be Brock and to beat his record.

Brock's passing, according to Moffat, is also an important message to all drivers, particularly the young, that nobody is invincible on the roads.

"Young people thinking they can take on the world should realise that freakish things can happen to the best in the world," Moffat says. "If it can happen to Peter Brock, it can happen to anyone."