AMC Garry Rogers Interview Part 1 (2024)

LOW PROFILE

A short bio published in the official book of the 1982 James-Hardie 1000 neatly sums up Garry Roger’s standing within the day’s touring car fraternity:
“Rogers has the lowest profile of almost any of the top touring car drivers, despite his phenomenal ability. He has never had the publicity that has gone to others – some of whom can be classified as not as good. On any given day, all things equal, he will match most of the top 10 drivers in the country.” The bio ends with the uncannily prophetic: “more will be seen of this man”.
How right our ‘80s visionary was, although Rogers proved the author correct much further into the future than expected – and not as a driver.
No, we can’t suggest the Melbournian was hugely successful as a driver at Australian motor racing’s dizzy heights. The respect and regard he was held in by his peers never translated into a full trophy cabinet. Indeed, AMC’s research could find only one overall victory in a national motor racing championship round.

As good as he was, opportunities to drive with the powerhouse touring car teams of the late 1970s and early ’80s never came.

Dare we say it, but Rogers really needed someone of his own ilk today – that is, the principal of a competitive professional touring car team – to give him a go in a well-funded, factory-backed effort. Perhaps being deprived of opportunities is why Rogers has become the fairy godfather of contemporary touring car talent. Maybe. But what we can more confidently surmise is that his experiences as a driver helped hone his skills as one of Australian motor racing’s supreme talent-spotters.
Garry Rogers Motorsport (GRM) has given leg-ups and lifelines to such current-day V8 Supercar stars as Garth Tander, Jason Bargwanna, Steven Richards, Dean Canto, Jamie Whincup and Lee Holdsworth.
Another GRM list makes for impressive reading – its record of successes. It includes the 2000 Bathurst 1000 win; multiple V8 Supercar Championship Series round triumphs (including this year with Lee Holdsworth at a soggy Oran Park event); back-to-back Bathurst 24-hour victories; AUSCAR wins; and national championships in Formula Ford and Formula Holden open-wheelers.
Roger’s considerable achievements as a team boss will be the focus of these pages next edition. In the meantime, here is the story of Garry Rogers - the driver.
It’s a tale of career progression restricted by sabbaticals when his business required his full focus. Despite its disjointed nature, his racing program included an annual Bathurst 1000 attack, where he, more often than not, overcame his co-driver’s lack of competitiveness to post a stellar result.
Not all of these cavalier campaigns had a happy ending. Rogers unwittingly played a prominent role in one of Mt Panorama’s most serious accidents and in bringing one of world motor sport’s biggest names to Australia. He also outlines The Great Race he considers to be the one that got away. We track his career progression from Appendix J to AUSCAR, via sport sedans and tourers.
2007 marks Garry’s 45th year in motor sport. It’s time his driving achievements received their due recognition.

EARLY CAREER

Garry Rogers’ path to motor sport’s top echelon began with a mechanical apprenticeship when aged 15, which deepened his affinity with all things automotive.
“I didn’t want to race cars for a living, because back then people didn’t do that, but I wanted to be racing car driver,” Rogers explains. “I saw an early model Holden racing car advertised in The Age newspaper in about 1961 or ’62. It was every young bloke’s desire to have an early Holden with triple Stromberg carburettors and other goodies. That car, girls aside, was my first love affair. I still remember the rego number, (Vic reg) OL-606.
“I wanted to buy the car, but didn’t have any money. I thought my dad would sign the finance papers for me, but he wouldn’t. He believed that if you didn’t have the money, you didn’t have the goods.
“The fellow selling it was a backyard car dealer and I ended up working for him part-time, while I was doing my apprenticeship, doing his mechanical repairs to pay off the car. Ultimately, he taught me how to sell cars.
“So that was my first race car and I used to drive it to trade school and drive it around the streets, with all my mates hanging out of it, sipping long-necks, having the time of our lives.”
Rogers first race was at Winton in 1962 or ’63: “As luck would have it, I won the first race I went in, so I was hooked.” So, was winning his first race a blessing or a curse, given how much he has since spent on racing? “To me it was outstanding, as I’ve enjoyed my time in motor sport immensely.”
Rogers competed in Victorian Appendix J touring car races throughout the 1960s (in two early model Holdens) against the likes of Peter Marchiori, Charlie Occupinti, Norm Gown, Bruce Hindhaugh, Midge Bosworth and Brian Muir.
“My next car was Brian Muir’s EH Holden. I had an XR Falcon GT I used as a road car; by that stage I had my first used car business in Nunawading and I swapped it for the EH. Today the XR GT would probably be worth half a million!”
Rogers ended up putting the ex-‘Yogi’ Muir Holden into the dam at Sandown.
“The EH ran drum brakes on the front and because they were so dodgy we ran Mercedes-Benz drums and brake shoes sourced from America,” he reveals.

“In Saturday practice the pedal went to the deck and I had no brakes. I speared through the bridge and landed in the dam. The car sunk and there is a photo somewhere with me standing on the roof!

“We pulled it apart that night and put it back together and I raced it the next day. And those were the days without paid mechanics. Try and get people to do those sorts of things today, even when they are being paid; I had really, really good people with me.”
One shudders to think what might have happened had Rogers been knocked unconscious, with the water up to the roof.Its untimely ‘swim’ may not have put paid to the EH, but economic realities did.
“I had really good success with the EH over three years, but my business started to struggle and I was on my knees, so I bailed from racing. I eventually turned it around, and was (trading) in Glen Waverley by then, and still yearned to race.”

ON YA SPORT

A strong mid ’70s sport sedan scene lured Rogers back. “I saw Bill Fanning’s Escort advertised and I bought it,” the now 62-year- old says. “It had a Waggott 1850cc engine in it but that was pretty unreliable, so I bought a Cosworth 2.0-litre BDG engine and accumulated some other Escorts in an effort to get some spare parts.
“It was a really trick little car, with a Holinger five-speed crash gearbox and a ZF rear axle. It was very fast and I had quite a bit of success with it, especially on the shorter circuits. In those days we didn’t have paid mechanics; I just paid for the beers and we’d have a good time and chase the sheilas.”

Rogers ran the 1976 and ’77 Australian Sports Sedan Championships in the Escort, nipping at the heels of V8-powered big hitters like Frank Gardner’s Corvair and Allan Moffat’s Monza. Sydney’s Phil Ward had a reputation as a giant-killer in his Escort, too, but Rogers says he can’t recall Ward ever beating him.
“We had enormous battles at Amaroo and Oran Park in particular. He even came down to Calder once or twice. He was a great competitor and driver and good to race against; he was a dirty mongrel, with no give or take.
“I think in those days officials had a better idea of what racing was, and you could race and fight fairly. The racing wasn’t impeded by a whole lot of bullsh*t, like it is today.”
Rogers said he had a spell where he was “trying to slow down a little” and concentrate on his expanding business but, again, he couldn’t resist the urge to race. Pete Geoghegan’s John Sheppard-built Craven Mild Monaro was the catalyst for a move up to V8-powered sports sedans for 1978.

“To be quite honest I probably didn’t do as well as I thought I would in the Monaro,” Rogers says. “I went okay in it, but I couldn’t get on top of the technical side. So I sold the Monaro and bought a Torana A9X-based sport sedan off Rex Monaghan - a bit of nutty professor-type character who ran it a couple of times without success. I liked the car; it was pretty basic, but had a mid-mounted 5.0-litre Chev V8 donk.
“I ran that and had quite a bit of success with it. There was the (Oran Park) series, another at Sandown and one at Amaroo. Wherever there was a meeting, I tried to be there.”
It was in the Torana that Rogers won the 1981 Australian Sports Sedan Championship round at Sandown, against the likes of Allan Grice (JPS BMW Turbo) and former Escort foe Phil Ward (ex-Bob Jane Monaro).

THE MOUNTAIN CALLS

Rogers’ Torana sport sedan wasn’t his first A9X race car, as he built a Group C touring car version for 1978, with support from long time backer, Greater Pacific Finance. “I got one of the Holden (GMP&A) body shells and we built that. I was racing that car quite competitively.”
By this time, Rogers had been competing for 15 years and taking a keen interest in the nation’s biggest race.
“I was about 33 by the time I got to Bathurst and had been racing for quite a while. I’d only watched it on television and I can remember seeing those Channel Seven camera shots and thinking ‘Geez, that’s something I’d like to do’. But I didn’t have the money then and I had a young family, but I eventually got there.
“I remember my first lap up around McPhillamy Park and thinking ‘I thought it looked good on the tele, but the real thing is even better’. Interestingly, Rogers’ first two Bathurst attempts were with his own team – thereafter, almost exclusively as a hired gun.
“I drove cars for other people because, to be frank, I didn’t have any money. I still wanted to go and I was fortunate enough to have people ring me up and get me to drive their cars.”

1978

Rogers’ first A9X made way for the ex-Bob Jane Racing example, turned out in a spectacular orange paint scheme, which had been driven by Pete Geoghegan in the ATCC that year.
Importantly for Rogers, purchase of the ex-Jane car ensured he inherited a signed and sealed entry for the ‘78 Hardie-Ferodo 1000, which he had not been able to secure with his own car.
Geoghegan agreed to co-drive, too, so Rogers had a known Mountain master to learn from during his Bathurst debut. However, the pair’s A9X engine expired after only 29 laps.

1979

Sadly, the ex-Bob Jane machine, with its trick lightweight panels and all, was severely damaged in a big crash at Amaroo Park prior to the ’79 Hardie-Ferodo 1000. It was stripped, the crunched body shell discarded and a new car built up for Bathurst in fresh Greater Pacific Finance colours.
“Bob Stevens was driving with me that year and I have to give him credit as he did most of the rebuild, as I was busy trying to sell cars so we had the money to go racing. But we had a good run at Bathurst and finished fifth.”

1980

Goulburn (NSW) Holden dealer Fred Geissler roped Garry in when local touring car racing switched to the ‘new look’ VB Commodore and XD Falcon. They finished an excellent sixth at Bathurst.
“If I didn’t do it with (Fred), I wasn’t going. I watched him at Amaroo and he had a reasonable car and drove okay and had Peter Molloy – who recommended me – doing his engines.
“I finished second at Sandown in Geissler’s car, driving the entire distance on my own. I’d never driven a car with such a good engine.
“When I pitted mid-race, I came in and undid the belts and opened the door, but there was no driver waiting to get in. ‘Where’s Fred?’ I asked and a crewman told me he thought I was doing such a good job that I should stay in! I was really pleased with how I drove that car that day.”
In that era, there was no disgrace in finishing second to Peter Brock and the Holden Dealer Team, particularly in the annual Sandown enduro that Brock seemed to own.

1981

Next came Rogers’ association with the long woolly-haired Clive Benson-Brown, proprietor of the Soundwave Disco chain. His nickname in pit lane was ‘Disco Duck’, in reference to a wacky pop song of the same name.
“He had a bit of appeal from a social point-of-view,” Rogers jokes of Benson-Brown’s female entourage. “He was a mate of Peter Janson’s and I think Janson suggested to him I’d be a good co-driver. So Clive approached me and, again, as I didn’t have a drive, I said ‘no problem’.
“He had an ex-HDT car and that was something that really opened my eyes. The first time I got in I was amazed how well it stopped, went round corners, etc. We’d been fiddling around for a couple of years, trying to get cars to do that. It was a really good car.
“Janson’s team had been preparing the car for Clive but couldn’t continue with it, so the car ended up at my workshop and I had a mechanic (in my business), Bruce Garrett, who was quite a clever race mechanic. Clive did the touring car championship races and I drove with him in the endurance races. But then came the big crash at McPhillamy Park that ended the race early and wrecked the car.”
Ironically, the ’81 race saw both Rogers’ biggest career crash and his best Bathurst finish as a driver – fourth outright.
“I wouldn’t say it was a down moment in my life, as it all happened so quickly, so there wasn’t time to be down,” is his summation of 1981’s significance.
Rogers’ black Commodore hit Bob Morris’s XD Falcon sitting in the middle of the track at Skyline which, moments earlier, had collided with Christine Gibson’s XD through McPhillamy Park. The two stricken Fords were blocking the road.
Rogers’ horrific high-speed impact with the stationary Falcon effectively ended Morris’s career. Such a severe blow damaged his middle ear, which permanently affected his balance.
“It was very disappointing, on many levels,” Rogers laments. “It also wrecked such a good car, (but) we got a new body from Holden and built another car.”

Q&A

AMC: What went through your mind as you rounded the bend to see the track blocked just metres in front of you?
GR: I came flying around McPhillamy (approx 190km/h) and there was just nowhere to go. There was absolutely nothing I could do. It was like someone had built a brick wall in front of you, in just a second.

People who relay tales of taking evasion action I reckon are bullsh*tting, because you just don’t have time. The two (crashed) Falcons were just there and I thought ‘bloody hell, this is it’. I tried to get the car a bit sideways, but because of the closing speed – they were stopped but I was still doing 120mph (190km/h) – I just hit.

I remember this great thud and bang, and I was conscious but dazed. I remember there were flames coming out from under the bonnet, as the thing had caught fire. There were flaggies and people running everywhere. It was chaos. People were running around like headless chooks.
In actual fact, there were a couple of drunks from the crowd who actually got me out. Without them, I may not be here today. If the people who got me out read this article, I’d like to thank them very much.
The pedals were all buckled and my feet were stuck. I had got my feet from out of the pedals and was struggling to get out the window, as I was winded. I was buggered, I couldn’t really move. Fortunately these characters sort of dragged me out of the window and up the hill. Then the ambulance came and took me to hospital.
AMC: How long were you in hospital?
GR: I was there overnight. My legs and feet were battered around, but the worst thing was I couldn’t see. The blood vessels flew forward in the impact and hit the back of my eyeballs and burst. They took me to Melbourne and I was fortunate that my brother’s a doctor and he sent me to an eye specialist. Anyway, I could see after a few days and my legs were sore for quite a while. In fact, I raced my sport sedan in Tassie the week after, with my legs strapped and bandaged!

1982

AMC: The next year, you drove with the well-prepared ReCar team. Allan Grice was paired with team owner Alan Browne in one car - yourself with Ron Wanless in the other. There was a lot of media and paddock chat pre-race that if the two guns, Grice and Rogers, were paired together, Brocky and HDT would have been given a real run for their money – do you agree?
GR: I had no doubt I could do times as good as Grice’s and if we could have been together and have finished the race - as unexpected things can happen, as we all know – the results would have been a lot different to what they were.
AMC: It’s something of a mute point as both Re-Car entries had brake issues, but even so, was that your best opportunity for a Bathurst win?
GR: The ’81 Benson-Brown car, being an ex-HDT car, was a great car but I just wasn’t going to win that race with Clive. And Clive himself would admit that. But you’ve just got to play the cards as they dealt. That year, ’82, was when Wanless drove the wrong way down pit lane! It was his money, so he started the race after I qualified it fifth. He’d got involved in a skirmish on the second lap in The Cutting and next time around he went past the pit lane entry and turned hard left into the pit exit. Imagine doing that today; they’d throw the book at you! Anyway, that put paid to a good result that year.

1983

Rogers again teamed up with Benson-Brown for ’83, the pair finishing just outside the top 10, in 12th.
“I think Charlie O’Brien went with Clive the year before, when I decided to go with Wanless. Clive approached me again for ’83.
“Clive loved to get around in his driving suit and he loved having the sheilas around him. But he was a really good bloke and his approach to racing had its advantages! (laughs).
“He was one of those guys, who, if you told him to do something, he’d do it. He was braking 200 metres too early for some corners and I remember telling him where he should be braking. One year I remember walking up to Murray’s Corner during practice and seeing him go screaming past the mark and thinking ‘he’s going to end up in Sydney!’ Anyway, he braked miles too late and he had this humungous lose and went through fences and everything.”

1984

Like so many Holden regulars, Rogers had the opportunity to do Bathurst with the Captain Peter Janson, motor sport’s clown prince. They failed to finish.
“Janson was good company,” Rogers reflects. “He was a colourful guy and did good things for the sport. He was certainly different.
“In some ways he was ahead of his time. He had a huge truck, a bloody big tent and a cook – all the things that we have today, but no one else did then. We used to have these feasts. Every time we had a meal, it was like a banquet! Janson was there with his cigars and his attendants dressing him and undressing him.
The rest of us in those days used to go buy a hamburger or your lady would go to buy sandwiches.”

1985

The switch to international Group A rules saw Rogers have his first start for a marque other than Holden. He paired with Jim Keogh in their striking burgundy BMW 635 CSi, finishing a fine sixth.
“John Sheppard got me that drive. He was running that car for Jim and suggested to him that I would be a good person to have.
It was well-prepared, well organised and a very good result given the money spent.” Not surprising, given Sheppo’s reputation for peerless car preparation and efficient use of resources.

1986

Rogers was part of a massive five-car Bob Jane T-Marts entry for 1986 and was aboard the BMW 635 CSi that finished second the year before with Roberto Ravaglia/Johnny Cecotto. Garry also raced it in ATCC races that year and was teamed with Charlie O’Brien for The Great Race.
“That was a bit of disaster,” Rogers admits. “I didn’t even get in the car - it only did a handful of laps (19) before the clutch went.”

1988

The first year back at Bathurst with his own Commodore (he missed the ’87 race) also proved a disaster, with American import John Andretti crashing out at Reid Park on lap 38, soon after jumping aboard the latest VL Group A ‘Walkinshaw’ model. It was effectively GRM’s first Commodore.
“I had the car built by Les Small - I think he’s one of the best car builders and preparers. Late in the piece, Grice got a deal together where Les was also running Grice in a car with Win Percy.”

Q&A

AMC: How did John Andretti come to drive for you?
GR: I’ve always been commercially minded, so I thought if I could get Mario Andretti or AJ Foyt or someone like that, it would attract some pretty decent sponsorship.
I tracked Mario down, which wasn’t easy, and spoke to him about it but he wasn’t interested, he had too much going on. And I thought ‘why wouldn’t Mario Andretti want to come down to Australia? It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and he’s letting it pass by’.
He mentioned that his nephew John was driving Indycars and doing very well and that he might like to come.

Now, mistake number one: I should have decided, if I couldn’t get Mario that I shouldn’t get anyone else.

I did a bit of research on John Andretti and he was doing pretty well. So I asked him to come out for Bathurst. I sent out press releases, but no one gave two hoots because it wasn’t Mario Andretti, but I was committed to John.
I remember picking him up at Sydney airport. To my horror he arrived on crutches! (laughs). ‘Don’t worry about the crutches,’ he said. ‘I had a crash last weekend in the Indycar, but it will be alright’.
But I should have known better. The minute we got to Bathurst and I stuck him in the car, he didn’t have a clue. He was just that far off the pace. Lovely bloke. I saw him last year and we had a good laugh about it, but he was just never going to cut it and not many ‘imports’ can. I thought it was a good thing to do, but it was an absolute disaster.
After Bathurst, driving back to Melbourne, the coppers pulled me up near Benalla. The copper recognised me. He must have seen what happened on the tele, as he said: ‘You’ve had enough bad luck for one day, you can go’.
AMC: Was Andretti’s crash the result of his injuries?
GR: No, he just wasn’t up to it. The bloke must be a reasonable driver, as he’s driven at Indianapolis and won the Surfers Paradise race. But you look at all the guys who have come here and none of them have done any good in their first year. Sorry, the only bloke who did was Jacky Ickx. Of his own admission, John Andretti just crashed.
AMC: One way or another, you’ve ended up driving with some less than stellar co-drivers? You didn’t always have the best partners, did you?
GR: No I didn’t, but I was lucky enough to have people who would at least give me the opportunity to participate. I tried to get my foot in the door at Holden but I could never get in there, so without those guys I wouldn’t have driven there.

1989

Rogers’ first and only Bathurst start in a Ford , resulted in a retirement for he and Ken Matthews in a Ford Sierra RS500.
“Colin Bond rang, and he had a deal with Caltex. Ken Matthews had some sort of hook-up with Bondy. I thought that I was a real chance to do some good, because those Sierras were rocket-ships and I thought they would have been pretty organised, but they had massive problems right from my first test day. None of the engines would do more than a few laps, before they went bang. So that was one of the worst meetings I had.”

1990

Another disaster, this time a DNF (Did Not Finish) with veteran Graham Moore - their Commodore suffering clutch failure off the grid.

1992

Rogers’ Bathurst career as a driver ended with two outings with Terry and Lenore Finnigan. The first, in 1992, earned them 13th place.
“I enjoyed those races because they were pretty laid back. At that stage, I decided that I couldn’t afford to do what I wanted to do and I had really lost the will to do it unless I could do it properly, which I couldn’t.
“The Finnigans were really lovely people. I originally said no, but they kept at me and I decided to have another crack. Lenore Finnigan ran that team – she really did. She knew more about shock absorbers, brake pads and such than Terry and she was so good.

“In 1992, it was bucketing down and the wipers weren’t working. I said to Lenore over the radio: ‘I can’t see, I’m going to have to stop’. And she said: ‘shut-up and keep driving’. I’ll never forget that! They were a great family and great to be involved with.”

1993

Another top 10 finish (9th) with the fighting Finnigans was a fitting finale as a driver. All up, it gave Rogers six top-10 finishes at Bathurst in 14 starts, between 1978 and ’93.

For images from the 1993 Tooheys 1000, visit our gallery here

AUSCAR

Rogers continued to race until the mid-1990s, having been drawn to Super Speedway racing at Bob Jane’s Thunderdome in Melbourne, like so many others at the time.
“The Thunderdome had some reasonable money involved with prize money and TV, so we built a couple of cars (Falcons).
“I did quite well at the Gold Coast races, being a road racer. The speedway blokes could do okay on the ovals, but they were not so crash hot on the road courses.
“I retired when I won my last race on the Gold Coast and that was it, in about ‘95 or ‘96. So, I ended on a high.”

NEXT ISSUE:
In AMC #35 we profile Garry Rogers the team boss, outlining GRM’s successes and behind-the-scenes tales. We also examine the secrets to his success as a talent-spotter. To read this as well as gain acces to the full back collection of AMC issues, subscribe to AMC Premium here.