Peter Mc Leod - Group A Touring Cars

Group A Touring Cars

The change to Group A touring car regulations for the 1985 Australian Touring Car Championship forced McLeod, and others such as Allan Moffat, to abandon the RX-7 as the cars would have to revert to running the standard 12A motor, have no aerodynamic aids and would generally be uncompetitive. Like many privateers, McLeod opted to drive a Holden VK Commodore for the 1985 season, but like most Commodore teams, including the factory backed Holden Dealer Team, the 1985 Group A Commodore wasn't as competitive as hoped. Compared to 1984, the cars had no aerodynamic aids, was some 120 kg heavier, and had lost approximately 110 bhp (82 kW; 112 PS) in 1985. McLeod's car, built from an ex road car, came into its own in the 1985 James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst, and for much of the race McLeod and co-driver Bailey had the car running in the top 10, and indeed held 5th place for a time and was the 2nd Commodore on the road behind Peter Brock's lead HDT car. Unfortunately their good run came to and end when the gearbox broke on lap 126.

Like all Commodore runner's, McLeod upgraded to the newly homologated Holden VK Commodore SS Group A for 1986. He competed in only 2 rounds of the 1986 ATCC at Sandown and Oran Park, and finished 19th in the championship. Unfortunately for McLeod he did not have a good Endurance Championship. He failed to finish the Castrol 500 at Sandown and after qualifying a good 15th at Bathurst, McLeod crashed the Commodore heavily at the 160kmh right hand McPhillamy Park on lap 48 of the race. McLeod later reported that the car blew its right front tyre and unable to steer the car, he drove over the ripple strip on the outside of the track and flew clear over the sand trap and into the tyre wall destroying the front right of the car in the process. Thankfully the cars roll cars withstood the accident and Peter Mcleod was able to walk away from the incident unhurt although he was a little shaken. Bathurst 1986 was where McLeod's friend Mike Burgmann lost his life in a 260 km/h crash at the base of the bridge near the end of the 1.9 km long Conrod straight. The consequence of Burgmann's crash saw the inclusion of Caltex Chase to the circuit in 1987 in a bid to slow the cars down. McLeod's former co-driver Graeme Bailey won the 1986 James Hardie with Allan Grice in a Holden Commodore.

McLeod continued to run his VK Commodore during 1987 including the Castrol 500 at Sandown co-driving with Peter Fitzgerald (DNF after only 17 laps with a failed clutch). Following the Sandown race McLeod was drafted into the by then no longer factory backed Holden Dealer Team, running under the name Brock HDT P/L after Brock's well publicised split with Holden earlier in the year, to drive the teams 2nd car at the 1987 James Hardie 1000 which had become a round of the 1987 World Touring Car Championship. Channel 7 commentator Neil Crompton was to drive but didn't have the proper international licence at the time for a World Championship event and McLeod drove in his place. McLeod joined formula 2 racer John Crooke in car #10 (Brock's 1986 car upgraded to VL Group A specs). Despite setting the qualifying time for his usual #05 car, Brock also set the time for car #10 (2 seconds faster than McLeod). Despite it being against the rules for a driver to qualify two cars (i.e. Brock's time for car #10 should not have counted towards the cars grid position as he had also set fastest time in 05, his nominated #1 car), somehow Brock's time stood and was good enough to put the car in 20th place (McLeod's time was good enough for 27th on the grid). McLeod completed the first two stints of the race totaling 61 laps, lifting the car to 5th place. Team mates Peter Brock and David Parsons then took over the car after their 05 went out with engine failure on lap 34. Inspired driving by Brock and Parsons in a rain plagued second half combined with good strategy and a lucky break with safety car procedures placed them into third position behind the two Eggenberger Motorsport Ford Sierra RS500's at the end of the race. The car was only thrown together with old parts laying around the HDT workshop and wasn't expected to last very long (something McLeod didn't know at the time) so for it finish 3rd while the teams lead car expired early was a surprise to the team.

Before the race a formal protest had been lodged against the Eggenberger Sierra's for illegal bodywork relating to the size of their front wheel arches. As no road legal Sierra existed in Australia at the time the protest was delayed by a few months and it wasn't until January 1988 that McLeod, Brock and Parsons were declared the winners of the 1987 James Hardie 1000.

Like other privateer Commodore runners, McLeod saw little value in driving in the 1988 Australian Touring Car Championship against the improving Ford Sierra's, though he did run in the first 5 rounds of the 9 race series. Following the ATCC McLeod built a new 'Walkinshaw' spec VL Commodore Group A SV with the engine and suspension supplied by the Peter Brock organisation who by that stage were running the BMW M3's. The car debuted at the Enzed 500 at Sandown complete with sponsorship from Yellow Pages, the cars yellow and black paint scheme looking very similar to the Slick 50 Mazda of McLeod's Group C days. Clutch failure ended Mcleod and co-driver Jim Keogh's race after just 21 laps at Sandown after qualifying 15th. The Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst wasn't much better for the team. The car had 3 separate crashes in practice and qualifying and then blew its engine in the morning warmup. The crew had just under 90 minutes to replace the engine and get the car into pit lane to make the start. This they accomplished just as the field was coming around for the rolling start (used for the first and only time in the race's history) and after taking two laps to get the car started, it lasted only 7 laps before the replacement engine failed. Following the race, Peter McLeod bowed out of touring car racing claiming it was too expensive to run a competitive Group A touring car.