The L34 Torana’s
would make their debut in the first round of
the Manufacturers Championship in
Adelaide and celebrated with a victory by Colin
Bond. However, they were not without their problems,
as Bond finished with gearbox troubles and Peter
Brock's car blew up. The only Falcon in the race
was that of Murray Carter, who finished second
after leading the race but suffering a blown
differential seal which cost him a win.
Allan
Moffat returned to racing in the next round at
Sandown, in a new car, but not the one which
had been getting all the publicity - that was
being kept for Bathurst. Anyway, he won, and
Murray Carter, as reliable as ever, came in third.
Significantly, both the Dealer Team Torana’s
had big problems.
Only three Falcon's entered
for the 1974 Bathurst classic, again part of
the manufacturers championship: Allan Moffat
in the new Brut 33 Falcon with German ace Dieter
Glemser, Murray Carter and Mike Stillwell in
the Shell car; and John Goss and Kevin Bartlett
in the McLeod Ford car. Moffat's car was painted
in an eye-catching overall dark blue with "Moffat
Ford Dealers" - an Australian flag and Brut 33
in huge letters on the side. It attracted an
enormous amount of publicity and was apparently
the car to beat.
However, nothing went right
for Moffat this time. In practice he had only
completed a few laps when oil pressure problems
set in, causing him to miss almost all of the
remaining practice time. He qualified a lowly
15th on the starting grid. To add to Moffat's
problems, Harry Firth, managing the Holden Dealer
Team, submitted a 15-point protest against the
car. It was found to be completely legal, but
this little bit of gamesmanship on Firth's part
certainly didn't improve Moffat's already marked
psychological disadvantage.
Of the other Falcon’s, Goss and Bartlett
saved some face by qualifying third fastest,
but Torana’s were well entrenched on the
front row, both the Dealer Team cars being there.
On race day, things didn't seem to be much better,
with Murray Carter being late in arriving at
the circuit due to traffic problems. When the
race started, things looked better for Moffat
almost immediately. Even though the two Torana’s
were clearly ahead, by the end of the first lap,
he had stormed through the field to pick up 10
places to be in fifth place. Unfortunately Goss
had a bad start and was back to sixth.
As the
race settled down, the Moffat Falcon looked to
be a chance after all and seemed to be going
well. Murray Carter had problems almost immediately
and was regularly in and out of the pits in the
early stages with
tyre problems. He ultimately
retired with brake and clutch problems and was
never a threat. On lap 12, the Moffat/Glemser
challenge effectively ended when the car had
to pit with ignition troubles. Eventually just
about everything that could go wrong to a Falcon
did, and Moffat retired after slightly more than
half distance after suffering from distributor,
bearing, clutch, gearbox and brake problem. It
was a sad end to the most expensive and glamorous
assault on Bathurst seen so far. Meanwhile, the
Bond/Skelton and Brock/Sampson Torana’s
were doing it easily with the Goss/Bartlett Falcon
in third place, some three laps behind. Then
a series of events occurred which completely
changed the race.
First, Goss punctured a
tyre on the mountain, and pitted after a dramatic
drive down Conrod Straight with two wheels on
the grass to prevent the wheel from disintegrating.
In the pits, Allan Moffat advised him to put
on wet weather
tyres. He did - and almost immediately
it began pelting with rain on top of the mountain.
For a few minutes the spectators witnessed the
sight of rain at one end of the circuit and sunshine
at the other. The pits were suddenly full of
cars, as the rain then drenched the whole circuit.
The second thing to happen was that Colin Bond
was black-flagged for dropping oil from his very
smoky Torana He later restarted but was no longer
a threat. Then Peter Brock, who was miles ahead,
blew his motor and was out. Fourth placed Bob
Forbes suddenly found himself in the lead, but
he still had to make a pit stop. Twenty laps
from the end, John Goss, who had run out of driving
time, handed the car over to Kevin Bartlett to
finish the race. Twelve laps later the Forbes
Torana made its pit stop and Bartlett took the
lead, which he kept. He drove masterfully in
the diabolical conditions, keeping Forbes well
at bay.
It was a red-letter day for the Ford people,
particularly after the uncertainty faced by them
at the beginning of the year. It also proved
that a private entry could win at Bathurst, and
for Goss personally, it corrected the injustice
done to him in the 1973 race. The remaining two
races of the manufacturers championship were
won by Colin Bond, thus giving the title to Holden.
Goss's was the only Falcon entered at Surfer's
Paradise and he came fourth after an unnecessarily
slow pit stop cost him two placed, while at Phillip
Island Murray Carter came in a steady second,
Allan Moffat losing his lead when the motor in
his Falcon blew. Thanks to Gossy and KB it wasn't
such a bad year for Falcons after all.
