THE latest edition of Australian Muscle Car Magazine shares the story of Perth-based privateer racer Tim Slako and his view of the collapse of an ambitious two-car privateer Commodore team that was set to challenge the Holden regulars.
The racing veteran formed a two-car team with fellow Perth racer Alf Barbagallo to field a pair of Commodore VL Group A SV ‘Walkinshaw’ Holdens in the Group A era of Aussie touring car racing.
Long-time speedway racer Barbagallo had sponsored Slako’s Group A Rover Vitesse in the preceding years and the two formed a plan to run a two-car team of Commodores in the late 1980s.
A pair of the fuel-injected Holdens were prepared with no expense spared in the build and testing of the two new cars with over 1200 laps of testing of Wanneroo, primarily to help Barbagallo adapt to circuit racing.
The team brought over 1986 Bathurst winner Allan Grice to Perth to drive the cars and advise the team on setup direction, a move that doomed the Slako/Barbagallo team in mid-1989.
“Alf’s ego was over and above,” Slako told AMC in the latest issue.
“He didn’t handle feedback well. In fact, he was jealous of myself, that he couldn’t drive a car as fast. We would try all sorts of set ups. He even brought Allan Grice over for four days to teach us how to set these cars up.
“Allan would go out after a set up and do a lap time and then I would go and beat his lap time. This pissed Alf off. He came into the workshop one night when we were prepping for the next day and he jumped up and down saying ‘you know Allan Grice is here to teach us things, not to go out there and race the f***er’.
“I said, ‘Alf, I’m not racing him, I’m just doing what you guys asked me to do – go out and try the car out after he set it up.’ So that was the end of the whole thing.”
The team had planned to run both pink Commodores in that year’s Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst, though only one made the trip across the Nullarbor as Slako promised his team they would go to Mount Panorama.
Sharing with Geoff Leeds and Damon Smith, the trio only lasted 28 laps in the race before head gasket failure.
The Slako feature is one of range in Issue 153 of the ever-popular AMC magazine. There’s an exclusive extract from Colin Bond’s new book included, a feature on Calder’s mid-1970s $100,000 Sports Sedan series and much more.
Click here to buy Issue 153 of Australian Muscle Car Magazine.