Peter Brock - Personal Life

Personal Life

Brock married Heather Russell in 1967. The marriage ended in divorce two years later.

Several years later Brock met 1973 Miss Australia pageant winner and Channel Seven weather presenter Michelle Downes. They married in April 1974 but this marriage was to be even shorter than his first, ending after only one year. In 2006, Downes claimed Brock repeatedly beat her, and forced her to have an abortion.

Brock next entered into a relationship with Bev McIntosh, the wife of one of his motor racing team. After his two failed marriages Brock was hesitant to marry McIntosh.

Although the couple never formally married, Peter always called Bev his "wife", and she changed her surname to Brock by deed poll. They had two children together, Robert and Alexandra. Her oldest, James, is Bev's son from a previous marriage.

Bev wrote Peter's biography herself in 2004 after finding most potential authors had incorrect preconceived notions about him. She also expressed a desire to show his human side, to encourage others that they, too, can achieve their goals. "Even Allan Moffat said it's okay for him—it's us mortals that have the problem," she said.

Brock split with Bev in May 2005 after 28 years together. Alexandra gave birth to their grandson Oliver on 28 June 2006, two months before Brock's death.

According to Bev, Brock was not an entirely faithful partner. She has described in a book her eventual tiring in the early 1990s of his relationships with "one too many secretaries".

After splitting with Bev, Peter began a relationship with Julie Bamford, whom he had met through his former partner Bev some 20 years previously. Subsequently Bamford's estranged husband Ron McCurdy, who had once been a close friend of Brock's, assaulted Brock during a chance meeting outside the Peter Brock Foundation's office.