This is one of those videos that you just want to watch over and over again. At the famed Mt. Panorama in Bathurst Australia, this is one hell of a race track. At the end of the video Dick wads this thing up like note paper, and somehow lives to talk about it, but he also taunted certain death about 10 other times on this qualifying lap. This track is insanely awesome in all kinds of ways, and absolutely insanely dangerous as well. My favorite thing to watch is all the corner workers and where they have them placed. Some are in the worst possible place.
What you’ll want to do with this video, besides watching it over and over, is to turn up the volume and enjoy the sounds of 351 cubic inches of Cleveland power under the hood of this bitchin little Falcon. Watching and listening to this one is magical.
CLICK PLAY TO WATCH
Oh, remember watching that one very well live…. god that car got utterly trashed in that crash. Went bouncing off thru the trees down the mountain. Amazingly the TAFE college boys worked on it all night, had it on the track the next day..
Noy so John, that chassis was a total write-off. The TAFE guys did indeed preform miracles over the yrs but that wasn’t one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Johnson_Racing
“During the “Hardies Heroes” Top 10 run off for the 1983 James Hardie 1000, Johnson had his second major accident at Bathurst. On his lap for pole, Johnson ran slightly wide at Forrest’s Elbow, with the rear of the Falcon clipping the wall on the exit of the corner. The car then hit tyres which were protruding from the edge of the wall which tore the right front wheel to the right and broke the cars steering. The Greens-Tuf Falcon would become the “Greens-Stuffed” Falcon as the car headed into the trees alongside the track and was destroyed. While the car was a right-off, Johnson thankfully emerged from the wreck with little more than a headache and a small cut over his left eye, though he has no memory of the crash, or the lift back to the pits with Peter Brock who was on his warm up lap for his second run. In a very generous move, fellow Falcon runner and reporter for The Mike Walsh Show, Andrew Harris, approached Johnson’s wife Jill in the pits shortly after the crash and offered his car to the Johnson team if a replacement car could be found for him. Johnson’s sponsor and friend Ross Palmer leased the Harris Falcon, while also buying the Barry Lawrence/Geoff Russell Holden VH Commodore for Harris to drive (Palmer would sell the car back to Barry Lawrence after the race). The Harris Falcon was converted by Dick’s team overnight in a marathon rebuild which included help from other leading teams (including the HDT’s signwriter), while the Commodore was re-painted in the colours of Harris’ sponsors (which also included a Bendigo Ford dealer). Unfortunately for Johnson and his co-driver Kevin Bartlett, the hastily rebuilt car was to only last 61 laps. Better luck fell on Harris and co-driver Gary Cooke, who would finish 10th outright, with Harris winning the “Rookie of the Year” award.”
First of all… hehheh…Dick Johnson. Should be sponsored by Shwing. Second, the video ends just as he is about to hit the trees? Come on!
I believe the reason the video cuts out is because the car took out the cable running to the camera.
All in what was a pretty much self built car; not bad for a bloke with no formal trade or qualification at all-a REAL hot rodder!!
Here’s the aftermath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMJsGG0QOIU
Jump to 1.40