Time for Tin Tops
By the mid-1980s Formula Pacific was on a downward spiral and Miedecke knew that he couldn’t go on in single seaters. If he wanted to continue in the sport he needed to race the cars he sold for a living. Being a Mercedes Benz dealer racing the Group A Mercedes 190E 2.3 Cosworth at the 1986 Bathurst 1000 held appeal.
“That deal was put together by Brian Connell, who was Bob Jane’s nephew and operated the T-Mart at Edgecliff (Sydney). Bob Jane had the AMG wheel agency and (AMG boss) Hans-Werner Aufrecht came out to Bathurst with team owner Helmut Marko (a former Le Mans winner and now consultant for Red Bull in Formula 1). Bob was going to underwrite it completely but then they got the Martins cigarette sponsorship. The car was good but gutless. It was slow up and down the mountain. (Colin) Bond was taken, so I thought of Denny Hulme as a co-driver. I knew his manager Lyall Williamson and got him on board – Denny was a great bloke. It was my first time at Bathurst and I had a bit of learning to do in driving a touring car.
“They sent out two cars, one was more developed than the other. Jorg Van Ommen and (Austrian Olympic champion skier) Franz Klammer were to drive one and I was to drive the other with Denny. Our car ran faultlessly and qualified OK but the other car had a misfire they couldn’t fix. Before qualifying they decided to put the two stars together – Franz and Denny and Jorg with me in the car that was misfiring. It was okay because in the warm up the misfire disappeared. I was quite confident but Jorg started the race, got hit up the back going into Murrays and hit the fence (on the first lap and retired). I hung around to see if they would fix it but there was not much
