The way to have watched the 1964 Armstrong 500 was from your armchair, with the television turned up high and a jug of rum toddy at your elbow. For it was so cold at Bathurst that spectators at Forest Elbow started a fist fight in order to keep warm. Brian ("Pierre") Foley had the heater going in his Citroen throughout the race; the drivers, all told, were more comfortably off than the spectators.

Not a great number made the pilgrimage to Bathurst to see the production car classic, and this was not surprising, for the weather was foul all weekend. The Editor proved this to his own satisfaction by bogging a WHEELS caravan outfit in the members' camping area (along with a dozen other units) and having to debog it when calf-deep in icy slush at 5.30 a.m. The pit, trade and camping areas were a sea of slush for most of Saturday and Sunday, and more credit to the ARDC for its handling of traffic both there and on the greasy access road to the top of the mountain.

So Robert Frederick Jane won it again in a Ford works Cortina GT, very ably assisted by George Reynolds, who turned the pair's best lap at 2 mins 21 secs. The Ford Motor Company got the teams prize with their three cars completing 130 laps, 129 (Firth / Raeburn) and 127 for the Geoghegans. The Needham Motors Lark returned fastest flying eight time with a rather terrifying 114.65 mph. And this on standard brake liners yet.

The overwhelming results (Vivas the first six places in Class A, Morris-Coopers the first three in Class B, Cortina GTs the first six in Class C) leads one to think that next year the organisers might have to limit the number of entries to any one make. Next year, from what we hear, there may be a move to have the industry take over the race and hand-pick both the entries and the actual vehicles involved.

Not that this is nay reflection on the ARDC. The organising club did one of the finest pieves of work yet seen in this country, right down to the ball-by-ball printed progress sheets for the press in their special press tent. They never did quite make up their mind whether or not to allow photographers on the pit apron, but this was only a minor nuisance in a well-run meeting. Their members' camping area will never be the same, however.