Call it the "Energy Polariser."

Race Press contributor David Segal takes us on an amazing journey recalling his days working in Peter Brock's Mobil Racing Team......

“That’s it, Matic!” exclaimed Peter Brock to his long time PR man Tim Pemberton, “We’ll call it the ‘Energy Polariser’!”

Pemberton had just jokingly suggested a name for the mysterious device Peter was convinced was going to change the world.

The ‘Energy Polariser’ did change the world, or at least Brock’s world, when he and General Motors fell out over it, bringing the Holden star’s world crashing down around him.

It also brought an end to his relationship with ‘Plastic’, which had begun in the ‘70s when the two toured country halls across the land, selling the 05 road safety message. Brock spoke, ‘Plastic’ ran the projector.

Pemberton – known to all and sundry, even his long-time partner Jennifer as “Plastic” – was always called “Matic” by Brock, which was an abbreviation of his personal take on his nickname for Pemberton, “Plasmatic”.

Decades after jokingly naming it, ‘Plastic’ still had an Energy Polariser on the bookshelf behind his desk and – at the time, I was sharing office space with him – we got talking about it one day over lunch.

‘Plastic’ then told me the story behind the Polariser’s naming and that Brock never twigged that he was joking.

I had my own experience with the ‘Energy Polariser’ which happened, not in Australia, but in Belgium of all places. And it also had a link with ‘Plastic’.

Forgive me if you’ve read this story before, but it is worth retelling.

I’d been in Europe in 1986 with Brock’s Holden Dealer Team, anointed by ‘Plastic’ to take on his normal Media-PR role, as I was going anyway, and Pemberton had a business to run back in Melbourne, couldn’t afford the time away, and I got the impression, wasn’t keen to go anyway.

The Holden Dealer Team was contesting four races that year in the European Touring Car Championship with its Commodores, Brock sharing with fellow legend Allan Moffat. The program culminated in a two-car assault on the Spa 24Hours race.

My experience with the ‘Energy Polariser’ started at Spa when, over breakfast at the team hotel, Peter had bailed me up and insisted he wanted to demonstrate it to me.

The first time I had even heard of the ‘Energy Polariser’ was earlier that year when I picked up a brochure for the new VL-Commodore based, the HDT-built LE model, one lunchtime in ‘Plastic’s office.

Among the features of the new model listed was the ‘Energy Polariser’.

I had no idea at the time what it was or what it was supposed to do, so asked ‘Plastic’, and he quickly shut down my questions by saying “don’t ask” …

Almost a year later, we were in Belgium for the Spa race, and after managing to avoid getting dragged into the whole ‘Energy Polariser’ thing at earlier events in Europe, Brock was now not taking “No” for an answer.

So we set off from the back of the Spa paddock in my little loaned Opel Kadett GSi, into the surrounding forests … Brock, his Polariser co-conspirator Dr Eric Dowker – known within the team, out of Brock’s earshot, as “Dr Feelgood” – and yours truly, all jammed into the tiny German coupe.

I drove, despite me inviting Peter to do so, because he said he wanted me to be able to make a direct comparison with how the Kadett handled without and then with the ‘Energy Polariser’ fitted.

We traversed the Belgian back roads for 30 minutes or so, deeper and deeper into the forest along increasingly deserted roads, until Brock told me to pull over into a little stone-walled alcove.

The three of us climbed out and I looked around … there was nothing but trees in every direction, and it was deathly quiet. We’d driven almost the whole time without seeing a single other soul. And my companions were behaving very strangely.

As I watched “Dr Feelgood” and Brock unpack their ‘Energy Polariser’ kit from the boot and start the install on my Opel, I began to get a very uneasy feeling.

The zeal with which they went about their work bordered on obsession and became mildly disturbing as they answered my questions about how the ‘Energy Polariser’ actually worked.

As I watched, “Dr Feelgood” carefully applied a colourful sticker with a graphic of a Lightning Bolt to the back window, where the dealer sticker would usually sit. Naturally, I asked what the rear window sticker was for.

“Dr Feelgood” replied that it was the “aerial” for the ‘Polariser’ … to which I pointed out that the sticker and the device were not been connected by any sort of wire.

“They don’t need to be, they’re connected by orgone energy,” was the reply. Hmmmm.

Funnily enough, I remembered that sticker, because ‘Plastic’, who had produced it on Brock’s behalf, told me some time earlier that it contained 11 distinct colours, and this was back in the days when four colour printing was about as exotic as it got.

‘Plastic’ said it had been poisonously expensive to produce.

Meanwhile, Peter was under the bonnet attaching the ‘Energy Polariser’ itself to the engine bay firewall. He asked me to turn the engine on and let it idle: “So that the molecules can align, which makes the Polariser work.”

Next, he was down at each corner, lowering the tyre pressures.

That done, I was ready to go again – anxious to get this over and get back to the relative normality of the team – but Brock told me to wait, saying that the engine needed to idle for 20 minutes, so that the molecules had a chance to align.

Finally, he was satisfied that everything was set, and was headed back, me behind the wheel again, and Peter asking what I thought after only a few minutes.

It was the final race of that year’s European campaign and therefore the last event of my limited involvement with Australia’s most famous racing driver, but it was also the most important race of the team’s overseas tour.

I had to deal with him throughout the rest of the race weekend so I knew I needed to give Peter some sort of ‘encouragement’ with my answer.

As we drove back toward the legendary Spa circuit, I slowly began to venture that I thought the steering was a little more responsive and the handling sharper – which, when you think about it, is the opposite of what it would be with the lower tyre pressures – and kept focussing on those aspects, while “Dr Feelgood” interjected from the back seat that the ride was definitely better.

I didn’t believe a word of what I was saying, or what Peter or “Dr Feelgood” were saying for that matter, but equally I wanted to get it over with.

Once we were in the Spa paddock, Brock leapt out and rushed across to his waiting HRT Commodore, which was due out for the next practice session in only a few minutes’ time.

“Dr Feelgood” wandered off too … and I went back to the team tent to do some work, glad that I had escaped so lightly. Or so I thought.

That night in the Francorchamps pub, I was having a quiet beer with HDT driver John Harvey and his wife Bev. ‘Slug’, as he was universally known within the team, was a lovely bloke but when irritated, was always nothing if not direct.

It didn’t take long for him to blurt out: “Seagull, I never took you for another one of these ‘Polarised’ people.”

Turns out Peter had told John of my favourable, if disingenuous, comments about the ‘Polariser’ earlier that day.

So, I then told John the whole story of my adventure in the Belgian forest with Peter and “Dr Feelgood”, and what I said and why.

Bev Harvey, bless her, interjected at the end of my explanation: “See John, I told you David wasn’t like that!”

Thanks Bev, I am still grateful all these years later for your faith in me!

There’s an ironic postscript to all of this, too.

Early the following year, I was the journalist who broke the Peter Brock-“Dr Feelgood”-‘Energy Polariser’ story nationally, on the 22 February 1987 front page of Melbourne’s The Sunday Observer newspaper.

While ‘Plastic’ was mildly amused at this development, word reached me later that Brock was less than impressed.

Sadly, he and I never got the chance to discuss it further before Peter was killed in 2006, while “Dr Feelgood” passed in 2019, both still true believers to the end, as far as I know.

John Harvey passed in 2020 and Tim Pemberton – ‘Plastic’ – in 2022, both very much non-believers.

Tail pipe: An Energy Polarizer was sold recently for $1200 by Donington Auctions.