Racing Films

Ok, so I may have gone a little over the top myself in working on this one…as well as ‘Over the Top’ I watched more than seven hours,  of Peter Brock films just to get a real sense of where this film lines up with the others. The latest film, ‘Brock – Over the Top’ was due to be released in July.  I’m pretty sure it was initially planned to be a cinema release, at least in New Zealand and Australia, but COVID 19 probably put the brakes on that.  As a result, we ended up with a straight to TV / Google Movies release for people to enjoy at home.  For people in NZ and Australia the film screened on Sky / Foxtel box office for a reasonable price which is how I viewed it.  Although having seen the trailer for the film I was disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing Brocky killing it across the top of Skyline on the big screen with cinema quality sound.  As it turns out this is probably not too essential in terms of viewing this film, it is less about racing and more about the life of the man himself.  In my opinion the film is not the hair raising ride the trailer was promising.

For those who don’t know Peter Brock is something of a racing legend in New Zealand and Australia.  He shot to prominence with some unlikely wins at Australia’s greatest race, The Bathurst 1000, and became a household name by being the face of drink driving and road safety campaigns in both countries.  Many of us drive around today, years after his death in 2006, with Brock’s words in our head, “Only a fool breaks the two second rule”.

Before we get into ‘Over the Top’ it is worth mentioning a couple of the other features that are available about Brock.  The first is ‘Peter Brock – The Legend’.  This is available on you tube and is a well put together ‘footage only’ story about Brock.  When I say ‘footage only’ essentially this is done by pulling together a range of old interviews and racing footage to create a 90 minute film with no other additional narration.  It flows really well and covers a lot of the same ground that ‘Over the Top’ does.  I watched this first as I was worried that ‘Over the Top’ might be a repackaged version of this made for TV special.

The other, slightly more unusual, Brock feature is a two-part made for TV dramatisation of his life.  In this we see an actor, Matthew Le Nevez, play Brock in a style of show that reminds me of a soap opera with a total viewing time of 240 minutes.  Released in 2016 I don’t think soap opera style was received well, I drew this conclusion from looking at the strangely asymmetrical viewing figures.  964,000 people viewed the first episode which dropped to 694,000 by the second episode.  I would suggest these figures are pretty low in a country of 25 million people, where Brock is household name, and people like to stay inside and watch TV as an alternative to being attacked by snakes.  None the less it is a decent watch, there are some awesome cars that feature in the film and Le Nevez plays a convincing Peter Brock.

On to ‘Over the Top’.  One of the things that made Brock so popular was his ‘real man’ story.  In 1969 Brock was essentially an unknown racer, tearing around smaller club racing events in his home built Austin A30.  His talents were noticed by team manager Harry Firth who recruited Brock to drive in the first factory backed Holden Racing Team or HDT (Holden Dealer Team) as it was known at the time.  It is a true fairy tale story, guy builds car in his garage, gets spotted by a top race team and then launches an incredible career, spanning decades and still holds the record for nine Bathurst wins to this day.

While he was a brilliant racer, generous with his time for the fans and promoter of road safety Brock did have some character flaws that were frequently brought into the public eye because of his racing fame.  In this film we hear from some of the people that Brock impacted in their own words, in particular, his first wife, his second wife and then his girlfriend at the time of his death.  At times it feels cruel to be kicking a man who has been dead for 14 years and no longer has voice to defend himself.  What is clear is that while Brock appeared to be one of the coolest and calmest guys driving on the track he was far from this off the track.

Brock’s first wife Michelle Downes outlines how their relationship and marriage deteriorated.  At one point Brock became violent toward her and they divorced.  This was a hugely public divorce an Australian racing hero and former Miss Australia breaking up captured headlines in every news paper in Australia.  In response to the revelations that Brock was violent toward his wife sponsors were no longer prepared to back him and he lost his drive with the Holden factory team.

Following his divorce Brock formed a relationship with his then friend Beverly, or Bev as she came to be known.  At the time Bev was in a relationship with another bloke on Brock’s race team which lead to some awkward moments.  Despite this shaky start the film focuses on the supportive role Bev played in his life for the next 28 years until they split not long after Brock’s 60th birthday.

At this point in the film we are starting to get a picture of what a polarising character Peter Brock was.  He had an incredible ability to endear himself to fans but those close to him or working with him found his force of character and drive difficult to work with.  In 1978, largely due to his success running Holden Torana’s as a privateer Brock’s relationship with Holden was re-established and he again drove for the Holden Dealer Team.  Brock clearly had a talent for making or leading the development improvements on factory built vehicles and came up with the idea of producing a range of special vehicles, with the Holden badge, that would go on sale to the general public through Holden’s Special Vehicles Division (SVD).  As a result, the already successful racing driver took on being the Director of SVD and oversaw the development and production of these special vehicles.

Another difficult relationship that is prominent in the film is Peter’s relationship with his brother Phil. After rekindling his relationship with Holden, Phil and Peter were racing in the same team from 1980 – 1983.  In the 1983 race Peter’s car failed and as per the rules at the time Peter kicked his brother out of the second team car so that he could finish the race which he they went on to win.  As Phil never got in the car during the race he was never attributed with the win in the official record.  Officially the win went to the three drivers that actually drove the car in the race, Peter Brock, John Harvey and Larry Perkins.  If that wasn’t painful enough Brock then also sacked Phil from the race team.  The fallout from this dispute drove the brothers apart for years.

The extra responsibilities of the SVD business combined with a mixture of, racing, aging and hard living Brock began to feel the effects physically and mentally.  He sought out help from Dr Eric Bowker, initially to help with problems with his back which ultimately lead Brock to some more holistic lifestyle changes.  Bowker’s methods were unconventional, he was a believer in the power of orgone energy and had methods of harnessing this to improve wellbeing, this often involved the use of crystals and various types of meditation.  Brock began to feel significantly better and attributed this to Bowker’s revolutionary ability to use the power of orgone energy.  It should also be noted Brock also gave up, smoking, alcohol, changed his diet and started exercising more.  Bowker began to have a large influence in Peter’s life on and off the track.

After noticing the improvements in his physical and mental state Brock wondered if orgone energy could be used to alter the state of physical things and in particular whether this could be harnessed to improve the performance of his cars.  Bowker and Brock developed a device, a small box containing crystals and  some magnets which were held together with epoxy.  There was also a special sticker that helped bring the power of the crystals together which needed to be placed on the rear window to be effective.  The device was called the’ Energy Polariser’.  Brock started fitting this to his race cars believing it provided improvements to the overall performance.  In 1986 Brock attempted to fit the polariser to his factory-built production Holdens for sale to the public, he launched the cars with the device fitted without technical approval from Holden which resulted in another split with the factory team.  There is an excellent video piece summarising the controversy and hosted by a very young looking Neil Crompton available on you tube, which I have linked below.  

All of these accounts in the film are portrayed by people around Brock or close to him, obviously Brock is no longer available to give his perspective on his life and time.  Creating a film that does this at times seems cruel, however, it does give a voice to some people whose lives were hugely affected by Brock who at the time were overshadowed by the force of his personality and overwhelming popularity.  The film only scratches the surface of Brocks racing exploits almost exclusively focusing on his driving career with Holden.  This is common to all of the Brock features mentioned here, they all overlook or brush over his time in Volvos, being part of an all Australian Le Mans attempt with Larry Perkins and touring car drives with BMW.  As a result Brock is often portrayed as a ‘Holden man’, but this is not the case, he didn’t really seem to have any particular loyalties always looking for the best equipment or edge to help him win.  Overall it is not really a showcase of his abilities behind the wheel, if you are looking for that, find a copy or replay of the 1987 Bathurst 1000.  One of the greatest displays of car control you will ever see.

Safe to say there is tons of Brock content out there.  In preparing for this review alone the combined run times of 90 minutes, 103 minutes and 240 minutes add up to around 7 hours and 22 minutes of Brock viewing.  This is just slightly longer than the time it took Brock to win Bathurst in 1975.  For someone who brought so much to our lives on and off the track this is the least I could do to pay my respects to the bloke.  Watching over seven hours of Brock films is my personal tribute to Brock’s own mantra, “Bite off more than you can chew, then chew like hell.”  Now get to your couch and chew some Brock.