Holden HT Monaro 1972 Bathurst ATCC

The 1972 Australian Touring Car Championship was one of the greatest contests ever, the third round at Bathurst’s Mount Panorama on Easter Monday won by 5 times former champion Ian ‘Pete’ Geoghegan, by 6 tenths of a second from Allan Moffat.
Moffat took pole in his Mustang TransAm from Geoghegan in a Ford Falcon GTHO, then Bob Jane’s Camaro and Norm Beechey’s yellow Holden Monaro HT350. Norm Beechey in the gorgeous Monaro had significant wins in 1970, the car proved too much for the opposition at the time. Beechey had been continually developing the HT, with Norm and Claude Morton in their Brunswick, Melbourne base.
From pole, Moffat was slow away, Jane was the first to the top of the mountain, coming from the second row. He held the lead until he was passed by Moffat on the first run down Conrod, losing a further place to Geoghegan as the cars went up Mountain Straight the second time. Geoghegan in his Falcon and Moffat in his Mustang were fighting each other in a slipstreaming and braking duel, around the entire spectacular track, tearing side by side down the 1 1/2 mile long Conrod Straight at more than 160mph, even becoming airborne over the humps! The media focus stayed with the lead battle, so when Jane was forced out with piston failure and Beechey with a shagged gearbox they left the circuit virtually unnoticed. The gear box was always a weak link in these big, powerful cars, a disappointing end for Norm in Round 3.
While he gained 3rd place in round 4 at Sandown, un-reliability plagued the car for the remaining season. At the end of 1972 as a result of the Supercar scare, the Improved Production class was shut down by CAMS with a new production based Group C touring car class introduced for which, sadly, the Monaro was not eligible to race.
Beechey retired from racing at the end of the 1972 season having competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship since 1963, along the way winning the title in 1965 and 1970.

Item includes certificate with individual production number.