Peter Mc Leod - Group C Touring Cars

Group C Touring Cars

McLeod began his racing career in 1980 at the relatively old age of 32, progressing immediately into touring car racing where in just three seasons to become one of Australia's fastest privately entered touring car racers, and usually had the fastest Mazda RX-7's behind Allan Moffat's factory supported team (though with reportedly more horsepower than Moffat's cars). By 1981 he had scored his first podium result with a third at the Oran Park 250 behind the Falcon's of Dick Johnson and veteran Murray Carter.

His pace and consistency were rewarded when he won the 1983 Australian Endurance Championship, which didn't start well with 12th at both the Sydney rounds (Amaroo Park and Oran Park), followed by a DNF in the Castrol 400 at Sandown Raceway in Melbourne. It was his results in the final 3 rounds of the series which lifted him above the JPS Team BMW 635 CSi of Jim Richards. McLeod finished 7th in the James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst co-driving with Graeme Bailey, 3rd at the Surfers Paradise 300, and finally 6th in the Humes Guardrail 300 at the Adelaide International Raceway (AIR) in November. Richards needed to finish at least 2 points in front of McLeod to win the title at Adelaide, but could only manage 9th in his BMW, giving the Wollongong based McLeod his first and only touring car championship in just his 4th season of driving.

Still driving the Slick 50 Mazda, McLeod finished third in the 1984 Australian Touring Car Championship behind the Holden Dealer Team Commodore of Peter Brock, and series winner Dick Johnson in his Greens-Tuf Ford Falcon. McLeod went into the final round at Adelaide in 2nd position, 22 points in front of Brock, and needed to only finish 14th to claim 2nd. Unfortunately a clash with the BMW of Jim Richards on lap 4 at the end of AIR's 900 metre long front straight meant the Mazda was out on the spot, and with Brock finishing the race 2nd behind Allan Grice and gaining 23 points, he moved to 95 points, 1 point in front of McLeod.

Following the ATCC McLeod was unable to repeat his 1983 Endurance Championship win and finished the 1984 Championship in 9th place. After finishing 3rd in the opening round, the Silastic 300 at Amaroo Park, behind the Nissan Bluebird Turbo of Garry Scott, he finished 7th in the Valvoline 250 at Oran Park, but it went downhill from there. McLeod and Graeme Bailey failed to finish at Sandown and Bathurst, while Mcleod didn't compete at the Surfers Paradise 300 bringing an end to the Group C era in Australia.

There were two more Group C races held before the end of 1994. One was the support race for the Australian Grand Prix at the Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne. After qualifying 8th at Calder the RX-7 didn't get off the line and was a first lap DNF. McLeod didn't take the car to the final ever competitive Group C race at Baskerville Raceway in Tasmania.