[SSbaby]

Originally Posted by Mark Petch

Hi all. No question in my mind that John was a better driver than Robbie.
Although we never had the benefit of Data logging systems back then, right from Johns Oran Park test he quickly had the wood on Robbie, much to the latter's chagrin.

Robbie was always looking for reasons to turn me against John, like trying to blame John for the diff failure when we had a commanding lead at the Sandown 500. It was not JB's kerb hopping that seized the crown wheel and pinion, but Wayne Eckersley ignoring Randel Edgells advice to give it more back lash for the enduros than we normally ran for the sprint races.

To Robbies credit he could get the best out of a bad car, But once JB had helped us improve the car, then John would be consistently quicker.

Robbies was very much like Peter Brocks in that both of them could drag a heap of **** round a circuit faster than most but both were hopeless at developing a good chassis. Brock drove one of my Tranzams, and literally turned the tried and true set up, upside down!

It was not untill we took the car back to the workshop, unbeknown to Pete, and changed it back to our normal set up, that Peter was finally able to qualify the car on the front row of the grid along side his team mate Andy McElrea. Andy went on to win the Championship for us, beating Jim Richards, Kayne Scott and Paul Radisich in the process.

I loved those cars, real racecars in my opinion, I still have the best one we ever built and even now it would run away and hide from the very best Australian Supercar. Scooters 54.8 around Puke all those years ago, is still mighty impressive in any body's language.

That was a very enjoyable read. Thank you.

In answer to the question... do you mean car/driver combo? If so you can't go past either Richards or Skaife in the GTR. That car was unbeatable... even with the 1500kg and restrictor plate(?) limiting power, it was sensational.

I used to believe the Sierra was unbeatable but the GTR absolutely put it to pasture.