Allan Moffat and his bottle of Peripheral Port?

[Dazz]

I'm looking for a picture taken during Allan Moffat's Group C Mazda RX-7 days, where he is seen holding a bottle of "Peripheral Port" as a joke, mainly to get up the noses of his competitors as he did so well.

Does anyone have or know of such a picture, I'd be grateful to see it.

[pete55]

I know i have the picture in a magaxine or book here somewhere. Might take me a few months to find it though.

[Dazz]

If you could dig it out that would be great.

[RotorFan]

I'd like to see it too. If its not a rotor, its not a motor etc.

[billy bigtime]

A lot of people forget what that tiny little rotor did around the mountain.
A.Moffat, a true legend of our great sport.

[Pro Racer]

IMO Moff v Brock/Ford v Holden has made people overlook what moff and the Rotar done at Bathurst.

[racer69]

Originally Posted by Pro Racer

IMO Moff v Brock/Ford v Holden has made people overlook what moff and the Rotar done at Bathurst.

There's nothing to be overlooked, the Mazda RX7-PP never did anything at Bathurst.

Closest it came to victory was on debut in 1981 if the race had gone full distance Allan Moffat/Derek Bell may have run down/outlasted the leading Falcon's.

1982 they weren't quick enough, same with 1983 and 1984, podium's garnered on both occasions throught reliability, not speed.


It's performances everywhere else though are overlooked in some ways i'd agree though yes, but then so are Nissan's (everyone just complains they shouldn't have been allowed in in both cases, rather than applaud the effort that made them competitive/unbeatable)

[Dazz]

Originally Posted by racer69

There's nothing to be overlooked, the Mazda RX7-PP never did anything at Bathurst.

Sure

1981: Moffat 3rd (Two Falcons in front, one smashed, no Commodore's in front of Moffat)
1982: Moffat 6th, RX-7's 9th, 10th, 13th, 18th. (No Falcon in front of Moffat, First Falcon in7th)
1983: Moffat 2nd, RX-7's 5th, 9th, 11th, 18th, 21st (First Falcon 7th)
1984: Moffat 3rd, RX-7's 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 23rd ((First Falcon 7th)

Looks to me like Moffat fared better in the little Rotary than almost every 351 Falcon for four years. And I think a 2nd, two 3rd's and a 6th is hardly nothing!

Anyway, I want pics of the bottle of "Peripheral Port".

[Henry]

Originally Posted by Dazz

Sure

1981: Moffat 3rd (Two Falcons in front, one smashed, no Commodore's in front of Moffat)
1982: Moffat 6th, RX-7's 9th, 10th, 13th, 18th. (No Falcon in front of Moffat, First Falcon in7th)
1983: Moffat 2nd, RX-7's 5th, 9th, 11th, 18th, 21st (First Falcon 7th)
1984: Moffat 3rd, RX-7's 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 23rd ((First Falcon 7th)

Looks to me like Moffat fared better in the little Rotary than almost every 351 Falcon for four years. And I think a 2nd, two 3rd's and a 6th is hardly nothing!

Anyway, I want pics of the bottle of "Peripheral Port".

IIRC, 1982 slipped away from the Stuyvesant team initially as a result of the lap 2 crash in the Cutting, which had the track partially blocked, and forced everyone down into first gear as they filed through the gap left by dint of Ron Dickson slamming throught the melee... and the V8's grunted away from the little Mazda... and then the tricky brake setup sealed their fate (as an aside, while two Falcons saw the chequer ahead of Moffat, they were excluded as a result of scrutineering irregularities).

1983... I've always wondered if it might've been a cakewalk, had Moffat ran with a carbied motor for the week.

[racer69]

Originally Posted by Dazz

Sure

1981: Moffat 3rd (Two Falcons in front, one smashed, no Commodore's in front of Moffat)
1982: Moffat 6th, RX-7's 9th, 10th, 13th, 18th. (No Falcon in front of Moffat, First Falcon in7th)
1983: Moffat 2nd, RX-7's 5th, 9th, 11th, 18th, 21st (First Falcon 7th)
1984: Moffat 3rd, RX-7's 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 23rd ((First Falcon 7th)

Looks to me like Moffat fared better in the little Rotary than almost every 351 Falcon for four years. And I think a 2nd, two 3rd's and a 6th is hardly nothing!

Hardly nothing i suppose but they were not results earned on outright speed. It's easy to say that an endurance race is all about reliabilty, which the car had, but in reality it never came close to a Bathurst win. They got 2nd in 1983, but the way Brock played with Moffat for the last half of the race (the dice of the race according to Wilko) showed the disadvantage the Mazda was at.

No matter how good your car is, it takes (or more accuratly took, no one has a choice these days....) cubic inches to win at Bathurst, as shown by the lack of success BMW had at Bathurst with the M3 (Longhurst/Cecotto put up a good fight in 1992 though)

Moffat even saw the writing on the wall for the car at Bathurst, saying in an interview with Steve Raymond during the 1983 JH1000 that if he didn't win that year, he would have to look at his options for 1984...presumebly one of the main reason's he stuck with the car was 1984 was the last year of Group C

The Mazda's performances at other tracks are i agree overlooked, the car could win anywhere but Bathurst it seemed. And lets not forget, if it wasn't for Allan Moffat & Mazda pushing a seemingly lost cause in getting the Mazda approved, Australian Touring Car racing was facing a very dim future (would Nissan have bothered...... BMW were there but didn't get serious until 1984), and Peter Stuyvesant International Racing were arguably the most professional team out there (perhaps more than HDT).

[Dazz]

Agreed the RX-7 struggled at Bathurst for outright speed, but then most others suffered from bad reliability when driven at anything like ten-tenths anyway. Johnson found that out and Brock used two cars to win at times.

Also in 1984, Moffats lead car was taken out in the start incident with Masterton and was supposedly a bit faster than the Hansford car. But anyway, if and buts.

When you look at the numbers of RX-7's running in the later Group C years and the fact that on the whole they were cheaper to run for the privateer guys they certainly helped to fill out the grids.

And along with Moffat winning Sandown twice, the ATCC, the Endurance Championship etc you had others like Peter McLeod, Barry Jones etc taking wins here and there as well.

[Sultan]

By 1984 The Peter McLoed Slick 50 car was actually reputed to have the highest HP of the rotaries....

[Dazz]

Yeah those Barry Jones engines were reputed to be a few hp over and above the Moffat crate motors.

A mate of mine had a Barry Jones Group C spec 13B PP in his RX-4 road car back in the late 80's. What a weapon that thing was let me tell you!

[Henry]

Originally Posted by Sultan

By 1984 The Peter McLoed Slick 50 car was actually reputed to have the highest HP of the rotaries....

But the PS advantage was the handling... IIRC, Moffat attributed his advantage to the chassis work they put into the cars... curiously, they didn't have the transmission dramas that others had either...

[Dazz]

With the gearbox, Mazda offered a competition version with a thicker case and some stroger internals, which is no doubt what Moffat was using.

He was always known for having a little more mechanical sympathy than others as well and was very mindful of not abusing the transmission.

I've even read in an old Modern Motor mag where Barry Lake was driving the car at Calder and was asked not to lect the engine buck at low revs but to push the clutch so as not to damage the transmission. Wise words coming no doubt from experience!

[RotorFan]

Originally Posted by racer69

No matter how good your car is, it takes (or more accuratly took, no one has a choice these days....) cubic inches to win at Bathurst

I wonder how the rotary won the Bathurst 12-Hour so many times? I guess you're right... it had plenty of cubic inches, all 79 of them!

[kramer]

You might well find your picture in here:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ALAN-MOFFATS-...QQcmdZViewItem

Moffat could (and did) win everywhere but at Bathurst - it was the big hill that killed the Mazdas. Remember 1983 when he went around the outside of Peter Brock going up the hill to Oran Park's Dogleg?

As to the gearboxes, well, I've owned several Mazdas over the years (I have one now, actually) and I can assure you the gearboxes are made from cheese. Lovely to use but very brittle.



Kramer

[Dazz]

Originally Posted by kramer

As to the gearboxes, well, I've owned several Mazdas over the years (I have one now, actually) and I can assure you the gearboxes are made from cheese. Lovely to use but very brittle.Kramer

Yeah they are funny things. I broke two RX-7 based gearbox's behind a stock 12A, both jammed in gear, and yet the RX-7 style box in my RX-2 with a turbocharged 12A has been bullitproof with over 50,000km on it including track days and lots of hard road use. Go figure?

It's shock loading that kills them, not simply putting power through them though, so if you are careful with not simply side stepping the clutch and being rough on gear shifts they can live.

[Dazz]

Oh, yeah I have that Moffat book, the pic is not in there.

[Conrod Kieron]

Originally Posted by Henry

But the PS advantage was the handling... IIRC, Moffat attributed his advantage to the chassis work they put into the cars... curiously, they didn't have the transmission dramas that others had either...

and of course to squeeze max advantage out of his handling advantage, he had a LHD car at is disposal for circuits with predominantly RH turns.

I vaguely recall McLeod saying his power advantage was due to the Slick 50 oil

[buster01]

Originally Posted by Conrod Kieron

and of course to squeeze max advantage out of his handling advantage, he had a LHD car at is disposal for circuits with predominantly RH turns.

I thought the LHD car was for anti-clockwise circuits

[billy bigtime]

Originally Posted by buster01

I thought the LHD car was for anti-clockwise circuits

Typo, I imagine.

[Conrod Kieron]

Yep, sorry typo

[Notso Swift]

Originally Posted by RotorFan

I wonder how the rotary won the Bathurst 12-Hour so many times? I guess you're right... it had plenty of cubic inches, all 79 of them!

Turbo = torque
It was not a power problem per se and inches mean nothing, but torque is king when dragging metal up and down hills (The M3 is a case in point)

[GTRMagic]

For sale...

1983 Bathurst 2nd place trophy

1983 Sandown Winner's Trophy

WOW!