Peter McLeod

McLeod went into the final round at Adelaide in 2nd position, 22 points in front of Brock, and needed to only finish 14th to claim 2nd regardless of where Brock finished.

They were eventually classified 24th, 221 laps behind the winning Porsche 962 driven by A. J. Foyt, Bob Wollek, Al Unser and Thierry Boutsen.

McLeod, Moffat and Hansford, all of whom had been regular drivers of the RX-7's in Australia, all expressed delight with how much quicker the car was without its added weight, stating that without that extra weight, the rotary powered cars would have proved more of a threat to the V8's at Bathurst.

After finishing 3rd in the opening round, the Silastic 300 at Amaroo Park, behind the Nissan Bluebird Turbo of Garry Scott, he finished 7th in the Valvoline 250 at Oran Park, but it went downhill from there.

McLeod and Graeme Bailey failed to finish at Sandown and Bathurst, while Mcleod didn't compete at the Surfers Paradise 300 bringing an end to the Group C era in Australia.

Peter Gerard McLeod (born 6 May 1948 in Newcastle, New South Wales ) is a retired Australian racing driver, best known as co-winner of the 1987 James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst, and for driving the distinctive yellow and black Slick 50 Mazda RX-7 Group C touring car during the early to mid-1980s.

He failed to finish the Castrol 500 at Sandown and after qualifying 15th at Bathurst, McLeod crashed the Commodore heavily at the 160 km/h right hand McPhillamy Park on lap 48 of the race.

McLeod later reported that the car blew its right front tyre and, unable to steer the car, he drove over the ripple strip on the outside of the track and flew clear over the sand trap and into the tyre wall, destroying the front right of the car in the process.

The car's roll cars withstood the accident and Mcleod was able to walk away from the incident unhurt although he was a little shaken.

His best finishes in the series were back to back 2nd places in rounds 4 and 5 at Surfers Paradise behind Johnson and Oran Park behind the RX-7 of 1979 ATCC champion Bob Morris.

McLeod began his racing career in 1980 at the relatively old age of 32, progressing immediately into touring car racing where in just three seasons to become one of Australia's fastest privately entered touring car racers, and the fastest Mazda RX-7's behind Allan Moffat's factory supported team (though with reportedly more horsepower than Moffat's cars).

By 1981 he had scored his first podium result with a third at the Oran Park 250 behind the Falcons of Dick Johnson and veteran Murray Carter.

These would also prove to be the highest placings McLeod achieved in 25 ATCC rounds competed in between 1981 and 1988.

His pace and consistency were rewarded when he won the 1983 Australian Endurance Championship, which didn't start well with 12th at both the Sydney rounds (Amaroo Park and Oran Park), followed by a DNF in the Castrol 400 at Sandown Raceway in Melbourne.

It was his results in the final 3 rounds of the series which lifted him above the JPS Team BMW 635 CSi of Jim Richards.

McLeod finished 7th in the James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst co-driving with Graeme Bailey, 3rd at the Surfers Paradise 300, and finally 6th in the Humes Guardrail 300 at the Adelaide International Raceway (AIR) in November.

Following the ATCC McLeod was unable to repeat his 1983 Endurance Championship win and finished the 1984 Championship in 9th place.

Still driving the Slick 50 Mazda, McLeod finished third in the 1984 Australian Touring Car Championship behind the Holden Dealer Team Commodore of Peter Brock, and series winner Dick Johnson in his Greens-Tuf Ford Falcon.

1984 was actually the only full ATCC that McLeod ever contested.

The 13B engined Mazda was still in the same CAMS production based Group C trim in which it finished 1984 and was outperformed by purpose-built GT cars such as Bryan Thompson's 4.2L Chevrolet powered, twin turbocharged Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC and his newly acquired 6.0L Chevrolet Monza (in which Allan Grice had easily won the 1984 Australian GT Championship), and Kevin Bartlett's ground effects De Tomaso Pantera.

Thompson would win the title driving both the Mercedes-Benz and the Chevrolet.

Compared to 1984, the cars had no aerodynamic aids, was some 120 kg heavier, and had lost approximately 110 bhp in 1985.

In 1985 he joined Allan Moffat, Kevin Bartlett and Gregg Hansford in Mazda Australia's attack on the 24 Hours of Daytona.

Driving Moffat's Bathurst RX-7, but with a different rear wing and without the CAMS imposed 20 kg lead ballast, the car qualified in the 38th (11th in the GTO class) and ran strongly until mechanical failure near the end of the race.

McLeod continued to race his Mazda RX-7 in the 1985 Australian GT Championship.

He placed fifth in the championship, his best finish being third at the Adelaide round.

The change to Group A Touring Car regulations for the 1985 Australian Touring Car Championship forced McLeod, and others such as Allan Moffat, to abandon the RX-7 as the cars would have to revert to running the standard 12A motor, would have no aerodynamic aids and would generally be uncompetitive.

Like many privateers, McLeod opted to drive a Holden VK Commodore for the 1985 season, but like most Commodore teams, including the factory-backed Holden Dealer Team, the 1985 Group A Commodore wasn't as competitive as hoped.

McLeod's car, built from an ex road car, came into its own in the 1985 James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst, and for much of the race McLeod and co-driver Bailey had the car running in the top 10, and indeed held 5th place for a time and was the second Commodore on the road behind Peter Brock's lead HDT car.

Their good run came to an end when the gearbox broke on lap 126.

Like all Commodore runners, McLeod upgraded to the newly homologated Holden VK Commodore SS Group A for 1986.

He competed in only two rounds of the 1986 ATCC at Sandown and Oran Park, and finished 19th in the championship.

He did not have a good Endurance Championship.

Bathurst 1986 was where McLeod's friend Mike Burgmann lost his life in a 260 km/h crash at the base of the bridge near the end of the 1.9 km long Conrod straight.

Unfortunately a clash with the BMW of Jim Richards on lap 4 at the end of AIR's 900-metre long front straight saw the Mazda with enough damage to have McLoeod limp back to the pits and retire, and with Brock finishing the race 2nd behind Allan Grice and gaining 23 points, he moved to 95 points, 1 point in front of McLeod.

There were two more Group C races held before the end of 1994.

One was the support race for the Australian Grand Prix at the Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne.

After qualifying 8th at Calder the RX-7 didn't get off the line and was a first lap DNF.

McLeod didn't take the car to the final ever competitive Group C race at Baskerville Raceway in Tasmania.

Richards, who finished 5th and 15th at Amaroo and Oran Park and 2nd at Sandown, scored no points at Bathurst and only finished 7th at Surfers, needed to finish at least 2 points in front of McLeod to win the title at Adelaide, but could only manage 9th in his BMW, giving the Wollongong based McLeod his first and only touring car championship in just his 4th season of driving.