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Bob Morris (racing driver)
Robert Morris (born 4 October 1948) is an Australian former racing driver. Morris was one of the leading touring car drivers during the 1970s and continued racing until 1984. Morris won Australia's premier Touring car race, the Bathurst 1000 in 1976. He also won the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1979. Morris was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 2004.
Morris got his early start in racing through his father Ray Morris who was racing at the time in early sports sedan racing with a modified Ford Falcon. Bob Morris made his Bathurst 1000 debut in 1968 driving a Toyota Corolla with Bruce Hindhaugh in the team backed by Australian Toyota importers AMI that his father Ray also drove for. Morris and Hindhaugh won their class. Morris again registered a class win the following year with Brian Sampson, again in an AMI Corolla.
In 1970, spotted by team boss Harry Firth, Morris was picked up by the Holden Dealer Team. He was paired with the HDT's other young charger, Peter Brock in a Torana GTR XU-1 but a troubled race saw them finish well back in the field. 1971 saw Morris paired with father Ray, taking out fastest lap at Bathurst in a Ford Falcon GTHO but the family team retired early, the big Ford overheating.
In 1973 Morris received backing from Sydney car dealer Ron Hodgson Motors and the Seven TV Network for his Torana GTR XU-1 campaign. In the 1973 and 1974 seasons Morris was very competitive in the Sun-7 Chesterfield Series at Amaroo Park driving against the Holden Dealer Team's Colin Bond and other top Sydney drivers. Then in 1975 he won his first Touring Car Championship round at Amaroo.
In 1975 Morris finished second at Bathurst in the Ron Hodgson Torana SL/R5000 L34 with co-driver Frank Gardner. The following year Bob Morris, with British touring car ace John Fitzpatrick as co-driver, went one better – winning in a dramatic finish at Bathurst. In the final laps of the 1976 race John Fitzpatrick nursed home the ailing Morris Torana which was trailing smoke. Rival Torana driver Colin Bond was within striking distance of the lead if Fitzpatrick had to pit and there were emotional scenes as chief Ron Hodgson team mechanic, Bruce Richardson, slumped disconsolately in the pits seemingly resigned to seeing victory snatched from the team's grasp. Meanwhile, a nervous Bob Morris paced up and down the pits with fingers crossed but the slowing Ron Hodgson Torana managed to make it to the finish line first with Bond in 2nd place on the same lap.
Many believed that Fitzpatrick had nursed home the Torana after it had suffered a broken axle, and indeed this was reported as the reason for the car almost failing to finish. Fitzpatrick later set the record straight when he revealed that a leaking oil seal (which was the cause of the smoke) was making the clutch slip badly. This made it much harder to accelerate the car to the top of the mountain, especially out of The Cutting which is one of the slowest and steepest corners on the circuit.
In 1987, motoring writer Bill Tuckey in his book The Rise and Fall of Peter Brock claimed that there had been a lap scoring error in the 1976 race and that Colin Bond's Torana was the first car to complete the distance. Tuckey claimed that Holden declined to challenge the result because a privately entered Holden team had won in such a memorable, emotional finish. He also claimed it was because Bob Morris' major sponsor was Ron Hodgson Motors, one of Sydney's leading Holden dealerships at the time, and Holden didn't want to sour relations with Hodgson. It remains however a contested footnote, Bob Morris denies that this was the case, claiming every other team lap scorers other than the HDT agreed that the results posted by the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) were correct. Despite this, Bond's co-driver John Harvey believed until his death in 2020 (aged 82) that he and Bond did indeed win the race, despite the official result still showing Morris and Fitzpatrick as race winners.
In 1979 Bob Morris, in an A9X Torana, won a hard-fought Australian Touring Car Championship title ahead of Holden Dealer Team driver Peter Brock. Morris also won the AMSCAR Series, run at Amaroo Park (in a one-off appearance, Morris had a new team mate for the opening round of the AMSCAR series, long time Ford driver Allan Moffat). At the Bathurst 1000 that year Morris was 2nd fastest qualifier but Brock, in his new A9X Torana, ran away from the field at the start of the race, leading every lap of the event showing the superiority of the HDT by setting the races fastest lap (also the lap record at the time) on the very last lap of the race. Hodgson, having seen his team beat the HDT to the Touring Car title, withdrew from racing, having achieved all he had set out to do. Morris was re-united with Frank Gardner, who was team manager of Allan Grice's Craven Mild Racing team. Morris helped develop a new Holden VC Commodore during the Touring Car Championship, but by the enduros he had left the team and raced Bill O'Brien's Ford XD Falcon during the 1980 endurance season, including the 1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 where the Falcon carried one of Channel 7's Racecam units.
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Bob Morris (racing driver)
Robert Morris (born 4 October 1948) is an Australian former racing driver. Morris was one of the leading touring car drivers during the 1970s and continued racing until 1984. Morris won Australia's premier Touring car race, the Bathurst 1000 in 1976. He also won the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1979. Morris was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 2004.
Morris got his early start in racing through his father Ray Morris who was racing at the time in early sports sedan racing with a modified Ford Falcon. Bob Morris made his Bathurst 1000 debut in 1968 driving a Toyota Corolla with Bruce Hindhaugh in the team backed by Australian Toyota importers AMI that his father Ray also drove for. Morris and Hindhaugh won their class. Morris again registered a class win the following year with Brian Sampson, again in an AMI Corolla.
In 1970, spotted by team boss Harry Firth, Morris was picked up by the Holden Dealer Team. He was paired with the HDT's other young charger, Peter Brock in a Torana GTR XU-1 but a troubled race saw them finish well back in the field. 1971 saw Morris paired with father Ray, taking out fastest lap at Bathurst in a Ford Falcon GTHO but the family team retired early, the big Ford overheating.
In 1973 Morris received backing from Sydney car dealer Ron Hodgson Motors and the Seven TV Network for his Torana GTR XU-1 campaign. In the 1973 and 1974 seasons Morris was very competitive in the Sun-7 Chesterfield Series at Amaroo Park driving against the Holden Dealer Team's Colin Bond and other top Sydney drivers. Then in 1975 he won his first Touring Car Championship round at Amaroo.
In 1975 Morris finished second at Bathurst in the Ron Hodgson Torana SL/R5000 L34 with co-driver Frank Gardner. The following year Bob Morris, with British touring car ace John Fitzpatrick as co-driver, went one better – winning in a dramatic finish at Bathurst. In the final laps of the 1976 race John Fitzpatrick nursed home the ailing Morris Torana which was trailing smoke. Rival Torana driver Colin Bond was within striking distance of the lead if Fitzpatrick had to pit and there were emotional scenes as chief Ron Hodgson team mechanic, Bruce Richardson, slumped disconsolately in the pits seemingly resigned to seeing victory snatched from the team's grasp. Meanwhile, a nervous Bob Morris paced up and down the pits with fingers crossed but the slowing Ron Hodgson Torana managed to make it to the finish line first with Bond in 2nd place on the same lap.
Many believed that Fitzpatrick had nursed home the Torana after it had suffered a broken axle, and indeed this was reported as the reason for the car almost failing to finish. Fitzpatrick later set the record straight when he revealed that a leaking oil seal (which was the cause of the smoke) was making the clutch slip badly. This made it much harder to accelerate the car to the top of the mountain, especially out of The Cutting which is one of the slowest and steepest corners on the circuit.
In 1987, motoring writer Bill Tuckey in his book The Rise and Fall of Peter Brock claimed that there had been a lap scoring error in the 1976 race and that Colin Bond's Torana was the first car to complete the distance. Tuckey claimed that Holden declined to challenge the result because a privately entered Holden team had won in such a memorable, emotional finish. He also claimed it was because Bob Morris' major sponsor was Ron Hodgson Motors, one of Sydney's leading Holden dealerships at the time, and Holden didn't want to sour relations with Hodgson. It remains however a contested footnote, Bob Morris denies that this was the case, claiming every other team lap scorers other than the HDT agreed that the results posted by the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) were correct. Despite this, Bond's co-driver John Harvey believed until his death in 2020 (aged 82) that he and Bond did indeed win the race, despite the official result still showing Morris and Fitzpatrick as race winners.
In 1979 Bob Morris, in an A9X Torana, won a hard-fought Australian Touring Car Championship title ahead of Holden Dealer Team driver Peter Brock. Morris also won the AMSCAR Series, run at Amaroo Park (in a one-off appearance, Morris had a new team mate for the opening round of the AMSCAR series, long time Ford driver Allan Moffat). At the Bathurst 1000 that year Morris was 2nd fastest qualifier but Brock, in his new A9X Torana, ran away from the field at the start of the race, leading every lap of the event showing the superiority of the HDT by setting the races fastest lap (also the lap record at the time) on the very last lap of the race. Hodgson, having seen his team beat the HDT to the Touring Car title, withdrew from racing, having achieved all he had set out to do. Morris was re-united with Frank Gardner, who was team manager of Allan Grice's Craven Mild Racing team. Morris helped develop a new Holden VC Commodore during the Touring Car Championship, but by the enduros he had left the team and raced Bill O'Brien's Ford XD Falcon during the 1980 endurance season, including the 1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 where the Falcon carried one of Channel 7's Racecam units.