Just call Brodie ‘King of the Mountain’

Suddenly I’m back in the mid-’80s as editor of TheObserver newspaper in the busy Central Queensland port city of Gladstone and we are hosting our big Sports Star of the Year event at a packed venue. The annual event always includes a major sporting personality as guest speaker, such as Rugby League great Wally Lewis, but this year is special for me - the celebrity is the one and only Ford racing hero Dick Johnson and I’m a big fan!

My job is to introduce all the monthly sports star nominees (no sexism here, there’s a pretty even spread of women among the candidates and there’s also a junior division with a mix of girls and boys) then introduce the guest speaker and finally hand him an envelope to open and announce the winners. The only drawback - I hate public speaking, which back then I rate about on par with dreaded death knocks, where a journo is assigned to interview the grieving widow, husband or parents of some poor soul who has just died tragically.

Anyway, no avoiding it, so man up and keep the beer jugs flowing! All is going swimmingly and towards the end of the proceedings I even crack a joke that has some guests laughing and a few including The Observer’s general manager glaring at me (but it was the truth and it involved an award winning TV series about black slavery in America, called Roots).

“Earlier tonight I told the boss that if I didn’t get home before 11 pm, I’d miss out on Roots… Well, he just looked at me, shook his head and said ‘John, that’s the story of my life’…”

Oops. Anyway, that set the tone for the remainder of the evening. No TV recorder back then so no Roots, but a few of us were invited back to the home of a member of the local Promotion Bureau, an event sponsor, set on an acreage a few kilometres out of the city.

Dick, as guest of honour, was also invited.

No problem, time to relax now the formal proceedings were done and dusted. That was until the host brings out a bottle of Bundaberg's finest rum. Maybe it was OP and the Polar Bear mascot would have approved and winked, but I should have known better. Dick had the good sense to abstain or maybe risk a sip or two, but he’s ready to regale me with some good yarns about his racing career, including the rock incident that defined his early beginnings at Mt Panorama but wrecked his chances when he was leading the field. It’s history that he returned the following year as the winner, with a new car thanks to generous donations from Ford fans and the Ford Motor Company which matched them dollar for dollar.

Good one Dick! I tell him I’m also a fan of Allan Moffat and he looks more serious as he tells me Allan is a bit on the obsessive compulsive side, taking his racing very seriously.

“He locks himself in his car pre-race to avoid the press …” A wry grin, so maybe he’s joking. Anyway, whatever it takes to win races, and Allan has done that many times over.

So the night rolls on, Russell the host appears too many times at my elbow, and before my poor wife manages to drag me out into the fresh air to drive me home in my trusty Allan Moffat Special Ford Falcon, I’m rambling on about how good those Falcons are at Bathurst.  I bid Dick farewell and he’s probably still wondering if accepting that invitation to Gladstone really was worth the effort. Sorry, Dick.

But Fords Rule, right? Just ask Brodie!