Once the 1995 motorsport season had been run and won, there was still one meeting to go named the Peter Brock Classic at Calder Park Raceway.
Organised by Brock’s management company Advantage International as a celebration of motorsport featuring the Group 3A and 2.0-Litre Touring Cars in addition to AUSCARs.
A two-day meeting featured racing into the night as the final Group 3A event was under dark skies on Saturday.
It was a busy schedule for Brock during the two-days thanks to completing double duty in his Holden Racing Team VR Commodore and racing John Faulkner’s spare Betta Electrical Holden Commodore.
Brock in fact secured the win in the final race of the weekend under lights after Glenn Seton took the opener.
There were many firsts at this meeting, but the most revolutionary was HRT debuting captive wheel nuts to reduce pit stop times considerably.
It also marked the first time tobacco advertising was not allowed due in part to circuit owner Bob Jane being a passionate anti-smoking campaigner. This meant Glenn Seton Racing ran Bridgestone stickers and Winfield-supported Gibson Motorsport replaced the cigarette brand with its team name.
This wasn’t the only change for Seton’s team, with David ‘Skippy’ Parsons driving the second Ford EF Falcon due to Alan Jones splitting from the team and effectively taking the Peter Jackson sponsorship with him for 1996.
There was also a driver swap at HRT as Craig Lowndes took the seat held previously by Tomas Mezera in a preview of 1996.
A strong field lined up for the Group 3A races featuring the likes of HRT, GSR, Dick Johnson Racing, Perkins Engineering, Wayne Gardner Racing, Gibson Motorsport, Larkham Motorsport and many leading privateers.
The grid was set by a Top 10 Shootout combining a lap and pit stop hence why the HRT captive wheel nut was such an advantage.
A small 2.0-Litre field of eight took the starter led by the Ross Palmer Motorsport Ford Mondeo driven by Jim Richards and Brad Jones in the sole factory Audi 80 entered. Garry Rogers Motorsport was there in the Alfa Romeo 155 for Steven Richards as were Tony Scott in the flying Volvo 850 Estate and Cameron McLean’s privateer BMW.
Jones and the younger Richards split the wins.
In the AUSCARs, Terry Wyhoon won the sole race.
The Peter Brock Classic provided plenty of prize money said to be in excess of $300,000.
Failing to continue into 1996, the Peter Brock Classic provided a hint of the future as Group 3A returned to Calder the next season and night racing kicked of the V8 Supercar era in 1997.