Vale Peter Williamson (1938 – 2016)

FORMER racing driver Peter Williamson – who helped develop the in-car TV cameras that today dominate race coverage globally – has died in Taree, NSW, at the age of 78.

‘Willo’ became a hugely popular figure with his colourful in-car commentaries in those pioneering days, entertaining a whole generation of Bathurst fans as he talked his way through the races, seemingly without taking a breath.

The wisecracking car dealer in his quick, class-winning, Toyota Celicas let loose verbally at a sluggish radial-tyred Volvo and even had a crack at some big Chev Camaros, yelling: “Move you big Yankee thing!”

“I use a few one-liners during normal conversations so I decided when I first started doing the commentary (on Racecam) I’d just stick with a few one-liners, which worked out fine because they were so familiar to me I didn’t have to think too much about what I was saying,” Williamson told former Channel Seven commentator Mark Oastler.

When Williamson first ran the development ‘Racecam’ in 1979, the idea was to cross to him for a comment. But communications were unreliable, so he simply talked his way through the whole 1000km race.

Seeing the publicity potential for his Liverpool car dealership, Williamson had been quick to take on the nascent technology, which was then quite weighty, when it was shunned by more prominent teams.

“Two blokes, John Porter and Peter Larsson, approached us at Amaroo Park when we were standing around at a barbecue and said they had this idea for an in-car camera, but Brocky and the rest didn’t want anything to do with them,” he told Oastler.

“I listened to what they had to say and it took me about 40 seconds to make a decision and we took it on.

“They did say it would require a fair commitment from us and that they’d need a fair bit of our time to help develop it and make it work, because it was just an idea at that stage.

“Eventually Channel Seven agreed to fund its development and I remember going out to Oran Park every other week driving around and around with helicopters flying overhead as they experimented with different links and cameras and all that. It took a fair amount of time to work it all out.”

It didn’t harm the little Celica’s performance as Williamson won his class – not for the last time – and finished ninth outright, beaten only by eight V8-engined Torana A9Xs.

The publicity generated resulted in Toyota – which had previously discouraged him from racing the Celica – providing him with $250,000 a year in sponsorship.

After that successful debut for Racecam, the big teams were knocking on Seven’s door wanting to be part of the action, and the technology soon went global.

Williamson’s ‘overnight success’ came 17 years after he started racing. He drew the curtain on his racing career in 1987, having also tried his hand at open-wheelers but being best remembered as a ferocious competitor in small-bore sedans.