Given my hobbling leg, this Canberra trip had to be relatively quiet. A couple of art galleries, a trip to the War Memorial, and the rest of the time hanging around the beautiful 1920's hotel that would be worthy of Gatsby. Must drop some kilos and get myself a white linen suit, sport.

One of the galleries was the National Portrait Gallery. Historically the lead motor sport category in Australia has been touring cars. At one time this consisted of people driving around a race track cars which were very similar to those that you and I might have driven on the road, had we been driving Ford Cortinas back in the 1960's. Over time the cars resembled our vehicles in little more than body shape and the competition became dominated by two groups; Ford, with its Falcon sedan, and Holden (the "Australian" if you want to call it that, arm of General Motors) initially with its Torana and later its Commodore sedans. The "jewel in the crown" event each year has been the Bathurst 1000 (as in 1000km, formerly 500 miles) event held at the Mt Panorama circuit at Bathurst in the Great Dividing Range west of Sydney. (Yes, OK, it's more an eroded upland than a true mountain range. Still, it's called Mt Panorama, OK?)

The intent of both camps was to sell more cars. However since both Ford and Holden have recently declared that they're quitting manufacturing cars in Australia, and since Ford has consequently withdrawn from motor racing here, the point is now moot. But back in the 70's and 80's it mattered.

And this man, this man here... he was known as the King Of The Mountain. He won the Bathurst race 9 times for Holden between 1972 when he was a mere 27 and 1987 when he had turned 42.

In early September 2006 I was at a hotel in the Leura area west of Sydney (as I have confirmed from finding the photoshoots from that trip) when the news came through that Peter Brock had been killed, aged 61, while driving in the Targa West '06 rally. He skidded off a downhill bend and hit a tree.

This sculpture had been done about 6 years earlier.

Peter Brock was far from a saint, particularly in his personal relationships. And toward the end of his main career he also indulged in some pseudo-scientific clap-trap drivel called the "energy polariser". But none of us are perfect. And achieving 9 wins at Bathurst was no easy feat. So the presence of his sculpture in the gallery was pretty much inevitable. There are doubtless far more flawed characters depicted elsewhere in the gallery.