I was flicking through some images and came upon a few photographs of Leo and Pete Geoghegan the other day, intriguingly, they were all shots taken in 1973. A good reason for a quickie article.
The shot above is on Pit Straight at Sandown just before Leo eases onto the brakes for Torana. Interesting for we Birrana-perves is the little winglet atop the nose. I wonder where else he ran it so equipped, buggered if I know the meeting date either. More Birrana here: https://primotipo.com/2021/10/12/tony-alcock-birrana-cars-design-process/ and here: https://primotipo.com/2020/08/10/testing-times-2/
Leo initially raced the first ANF2 Birrana, the 272 Hart-Ford 416B 1.6, in 1972. By 1973 he raced a works-car to the Australian Formula 2 Championship in the 273 shown above. He won six of the seven rounds, then doubled up and won again aboard a 274 in 1974 against much stronger opposition. More about the 272 here: https://primotipo.com/2019/02/01/this-is-hard-work/
Meanwhile, younger-brother, Pete was doing his thing as one of the country’s greatest exponents of touring cars. He ran a John Sheppard built Group C Chrysler Valiant Charger E49 in the Australian Touring Car Championship, then switched brands to co-drive a works XA Ford Falcon GT351 Coupe in the Bathurst round of the Australian Manufacturers Championship.
Pete was sixth in the ATCC, his bests, a second place at Surfers and a pair of thirds at Calder and Warwick Farm. Allan Moffat won the title in his XY Ford Falcon GTHO Phase 3 from Peter Brock, LJ Holden Torana GTR XU-1, and Graham ‘Tubby’ Ritter, Ford Escort twin-cam.
At Bathurst (below) Pete bagged an overdue 500-win for the brothers when he co-drove Moffat’s Coupe to a celebrated FoMoCo victory. Holden (Torana GTR XU-1) won the Manchamps with wins in three of the five rounds, Ford won two and were placed fourth in the title race, with Alfa Romeo (105 Series 2000 GTV) second and Mazda (Capella RX2) third.
Credits…
Auto Action, Rod Steffanoni
Finito…
primotipo... 
Some good sleuthing there. I looked at buying Leo’s F2 Birrana at the end of 1975 when he offered it for sale through RCN classifieds. He suggested that it would be a good car for me with my Grace Bros Team-Levi’s sponsorship offer from Hans Tieppermann. Bridge too far for me unfortunately.
Cheers Peter,
It was certainly a great car, Alfie effectively ‘relaunched’ his career with it.
Mark
With regards to the front wing, in your article “Testing Times”, you can see the mounts for the wing attached to the car in early August. At Calder in October, there is no sign of it or the mounts. Maybe it was a test day at Sandown around August as the only race the F2’s would have had there in 1973 would have been the Grand Prix in November?
G’day Mark, Great weekend at Mallala and I was totally stoked to see the Bryan Thomson replica VW fastback sports sedan!!! I seem to recall you ran segments on the original monster and wonder,do you have any info on this new Beast? Best regards,Rob.
Cheers Laurie,
I was at the GP that year, he didn’t run the car in that race but you may well be right about a support F3/F2 race at the same meeting.
m
Yes Robert, the car is great.
I saw it at Sandown last year. It had the blessing of Thommo and Peter Fowler – and was built by Peter – so the car will be as true to the spec of the original car as it is possible to be.
Mark