A LAP 1 exit from the Bathurst 1000 was just the latest blow in what had been a season of them for Andrew Miedecke.
The open-wheel and touring car racer shared stories from throughout his career in a visit to the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Castrol.
Among them were tales from his star-crossed 1989 season, which had started so promisingly for his Miedecke Motorsport outfit.
Listen to the episodes in the players below!
Having operated on a shoestring budget throughout 1988, Miedecke netted solid financial support from electronics manufacturer Kenwood and tyre supplier Yokohama, along with backing from Kevin Waldock’s Blast Dynamics and Danlande Aviation companies.
While not enough to match rivals’ deals with cigarette and petrol companies, the black and fluorescent red signage was better than the bare white panels he’d carried the previous season.
But crashes soon brought his Ross Stone-led team to its knees.
Miedecke’s Sierra was destroyed in an infamous fiery crash at the Lakeside ATCC round, and then teammate Andrew Bagnall’s was written off in a practice rollover at Sandown.
The team regrouped, building new cars for Miedecke and Bagnall plus another for Waldock, in time for the endurance races.
Miedecke started strongly with victory in Oran Park’s Pepsi 300 with Bagnall, then challenged for victory at the Sandown 500 with Charlie O’Brien until losing seven laps replacing a broken driveshaft.
It set Miedecke up for his strongest Bathurst campaign since his breakthrough run in 1987, when he fought and led the visiting European Sierras.
Practice and qualifying were trouble-free, culminating in sixth on the grid for the #6 Sierra.
He went one better off the start, Miedecke gaining a spot up Mountain Straight when Tony Longhurst briefly slowed with clutch problems.
The Kenwood Sierra struck a problem of its own just moments later.
Miedecke arrived at the braking point for Griffins Bend to find the gearbox jammed in fifth.
Lucky not to be hit by the closely-following Jim Richards, Miedecke limped the car up the shelf and through the Cutting, but pulled up at Reid Park when the engine began overheating.
The cause of the failure was traced to a tiny mistake made during the team’s final preparations for the race.
“The team had pulled the gearbox apart to make sure it was right and, probably in retrospect, it was the wrong thing (to do),” Miedecke told the latest episode of the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Castrol.
“There was a gear change rod made of hardened steel with a little hole in it, and to secure the gear change to that, they pressed a little roll pin into it.
“Turns out the guys put an over-size roll pin in that hole which stressed the high-tensile steel rod, and it didn’t take long to break.”
The race went its full 161-lap duration without a single Safety Car period, not even to retrieve the #6 Sierra, which was deemed as being out of harm’s way – by 1989 standards, anyway.
That meant the car remained exactly where Miedecke parked it until after the race, when it was finally brought back down to the paddock.
Devastated by the early exit, Miedecke had also been in no rush to head back to the bottom of the hill.
“I sat up on that hill and I couldn’t face anybody,” Miedecke said.
“I couldn’t face the sponsors, I couldn’t face people, I couldn’t face the team; so I sat up there for a good couple of hours before I came back.
“(It) broke my heart.”
Another sizable crash in the Australian Grand Prix support race in Adelaide a couple of months later cost him a deal to race his Sierra in Japan, backed by Yokohama with Formula 1 racer Stefan Johansson as his co-driver.
For Miedecke, it was enough.
He shut down Miedecke Motorsport, sold the team to Waldock and signed a deal to join Peter Brock’s squad as its number two driver.
While the 1989 race represents a low point for Miedecke at the Mountain, he went on to net some silverware over the course of his Bathurst 1000 career.
In 1997, Miedecke stood on the podium as the third-place finisher alongside Mark Larkham.
