|
Colin Bond was a racing driver and rally driver of exceptional ability in both fields. He won Bathurst in 1969, won the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1975, and innumerable races and rallies.
He tried F5000 a couple of times, notably in a wet practice at Warwick Farm where he was something like 30s faster than anyone else.
He won the accolades of the driver who made the statement on TV by his continual driving back through the field in the Heatway rally in New Zealand in 1973 (?). This was a World Championship event, and he had brake trouble on the first stage. He would storm back through the field on each stage, passing car after car after car, then be put back down in order for the next one and repeat the performance.
Very laid back in personal style, he kept on racing into the eighties, but his best was behind him. A while back, I was researching a story on drivers and their attitude to when they felt they were at their best. He's the only one who thinks he's past it, he felt he reached his peak at thirty.
One of his most dominant performances was in a Formula Vee race at Warwick Farm, only one he contested, won by a mile.
You might call him an all-rounder... and many's the time he's turned up at a race meeting the afternoon after driving through the night in a rally, started from the rear of the grid and won the race.
|