Transition of Holden Teams
Holden Dealer takes over from Holden Racing Team
The Holden Dealer Racing Team (HDRT) did not last long after the London to Sydney Marathon. being replaced by the Holden Dealer Team (HDT).
None of the six Holden Dealer Racing Team drivers from 1968, nor David McKay or Scuderia Veloce were involved in Firth’s 1969 Holden Dealer Team campaign.
The Holden Dealer Team managed by Harry Firth had its first outing at the 1969 Datsun Three Hour at Sandown. The single Holden Monaro GTS 350 was entered for Kevin Bartlett and Spencer Martin and famously retired after suffering brake problems, crashing and catching fire. Learnings from this contributed to future Bathurst wins with improved brake pads on the Monaros.
1970 BP Rally
Holden took the Win and the Manufacturers Award at the 1970 BP Rally
This 2,000 mile event was considered to be one of the best BP’s yet with director Frank Kilfoyle combining driving and navigation challenges, with a good and varied selection of roads and tracks. The weather gods decided to come out and play making this event a very wet one.
Harry Firth had taken up the role of managing the new Holden Dealer team and decided to enter both a Monaro and a Torana into the 1970 BP Rally.
The Monaro was the most powerful car in modern Trials with a believed 360bhp from the GTS 350 Chev motor. Bond and Roberts had won the most recent Bathurst 500 sharing a 350 Monaro so were clearly at home as Team Mates.
Water played a major part in the rally with muddy Kamarooka Forest and a maze of muddy tracks around Annuello. Worst followed near Kulkyne with unmapped tracks causing most competitors problems.
Stage end at Mildura saw Tony Roberts’ Torana leading from Colin Bond’s Monaro. The next Division ran down towards Hattah via a couple of long, sandy traps. Right near the end of the rally, Bob Watson in a Rehault Gordini managed to pass Bond in the Monaro into second place. The Monaro was struggling in the sandy conditions likely due to being much heavier, although much more powerful than the Renault.
The 1970 BP Rally provided the Holden Dealer Team with early success with Tony Roberts and Mike Osborne in the Torana taking a convincing win and Colin Bond and Brian Hope in the 350 Monaro, finishing third. This gave Holden the Manufacturers Award win, narrowly beating the high number of Datsun’s.
1970 Ampol International Trial
10,000 miles of adventure trials would test the best Man and Machine
The 1970 Ampol Trial was the first “Round Australia” trial since the 1964 Ampol Trial and would be the only such event until the 1979 Repco Reliability Trial. It was the Longest Toughest and Richest Trial to date with 201 entrants including International teams.
The 1970 Ampol Trial had a “Monte Carlo” type started from each capital city on June 20th to Port Augusta South Australia and then a Prologue to Alice Springs. The Trial proper then started on the 23rd June from Alice Springs, going through Tennant Creek – Mount Isa – Cooktown – Cairns – Townsville – Rockhampton – Brisbane – Warwick – Wagga Wagga – Mildura – Adelaide – Horsham – Bendigo – Melbourne – Albury – Omeo – Lakes Entrance – Canberra and finishing in Sydney on July 5th 1970.
The Holden Dealer Team under Harry Firth prepared and ran three Rally Monaros for the Ampol Trial, one each for drivers Colin Bond, Barry Ferguson and John Keran. The factory backed Holden Dealer Team was expected to win however much can happen over 10,000 miles. The three HDT Monaros started at Bondi Beach and encouraged by Keran, drove flat out to the meeting point at Port Augusta SA, arriving about 12 hours early.
Harry Firth had incredibly included a HDT Service Plane in their tool kit. This proved handy early on when the Bond, Roberts, Hope Monaro took a wrong turn at a refuel point resulting in a radio call from Harry to turn around. “The old bastard’s everywhere, he must be God” was the view of the car 20 team from then on.
The transport sections were as much a part of the rally as the competitive stages with the longest transport well over 1,000km from Alice Springs to Mount Isa.
Loose the Least Points
The points sytem allowed repairs without being knocked out completely
All suffered challenges of some sort, Colin Bond recalls having being bogged in a particularly sandy stage where the crew had to winched the big Monaro out manually. Other teams took opportunistic assistance from a farmer with a tractor (fee for service) despite outside assistance not being allowed within the rules.
John Keran and Roger Bonhomme had no problem offering $20 of HDT funds to jump the $5 tow queue in the same sandy section to great advantage. John Keran’s flat out driving nature however caught up latter on with pretty much everything under the front wheel arches either bent, broken of smoking. Fortunately as a benefit of being in a Factory car during the Townsville break everything was renewed and the car was even washed and vacuumed.
John Keran was the fastest Monaro for most of the event and worked his way to first place by the time the event came to Mackay. Out of Wagga on the way to Adelaide with about 300 miles to go however, John Keran’s Monaro suffered a rear wheel bearing issue and then bogged in an infamous sand section loosing significant time and points.
John Keran never gave up over the remainder of the event including sourcing an axle assembly from a local Holden agents own Monaro, but could not recover enough lost points to catch the leaders again. John Keran would latter find out that Barry Ferguson had a spare axle assembly in their boot, not that the crew new it was there. Also the grader that was pulling cars out of the last and worst sandy bog in order of arrival, was put there by Harry Firth for the Monaros, but somehow the driver was not aware of that.
Colin Bond had crept up to equal third by Melbourne with 3 days to go and 132 of the 201 starters still in the event. Colin Bonds push enabled him to lock in Third place and while all teams suffered point losses in the back end of the rally, it did not change the top 3 order.
From dust in NT, mud in QLD and snow in ACT, the teams had everything thrown at them by the 1970 Ampol Trial over the 15 days and 10,000 miles. Incredibly after such a huge distance, using the points loss scoring system, the event had equal First Place winners, both on a low 60 points lost.
Jean-Claude Ogier / Lucette Ogier Citroen DS 21and Edgar Herrman / Hans Schuller Datsun 1600 SSS both came First. HDT Colin Bond / Tony Roberts / Brian Hope Holden Monaro HT GTS 350 came Third.
Finish after 10,000 Miles
Bond's Monaro Finishes a Credible Third in the 1970 Ampol
Holden Dealer Team
Colin Bond / Tony Roberts / Brian Hope Holden Monaro HT GTS 350 – 3rd
Barry Ferguson David Johnson Holden Monaro HT GTS 350 came – 13th.
John Keran / Roger Bonhomme Holden Monaro HT GTS 350 came – 18th.
Privateer Monaro Rally Cars
Wal Glass / Gary Owens / David Balmain Holden Monaro HK GTS 327 – 17th.
John Murray / James Sampson / Max Stahl Holden Monaro HT GTS 350 – 32nd.
Kevin Williams / Harry Smith Holden Monaro HT GTS – 43rd.
Miller / F. Duller / Tony Wunderlich Holden Monaro HT GTS 350 – 60th.
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