Holden VH Commodore HDT Group III

The team consisted of brothers Peter and Wally Cherniakoff, both plasterers from Sydney, the event organiser, Jeff Denmeade, and Tim Binns, a civil servant from Sydney.

They drove Peter's Holden VH Commodore SS Group III, a 5.0-litre V8 with 4-speed manual gearbox.

Tim Binns had turned up to the race in his own Mitsubishi Cordia Turbo, but something went wrong with the car and somehow he got to ride along with this team, although he was not entered in the race. He did one driving stint in the Commodore.

After the race start the Trans Am had taken a different route and the Commodore and RX-7 went the same way south to Grafton then west to Broken Hill and on to Port Augusta.

The team pushed hard in the opening parts of the race and opened up a big lead over the RX-7.

At their third fuel stop in Cobar, New South Wales, they were an hour ahead of their planned schedule.

They ran out of fuel past Port Augusta, South Australia, and were passed by the Trans Am as they were filling up at the roadside from jerry cans they were carrying.

They drove hard and tried to catch up and when they next stopped for fuel they pulled in as the Trans Am was leaving. Peter was in such a rush he slid the Commodore to a stop with the handbrake.

They caught up with the Trans Am a little while later as it was having mechanical problems and they pulled over to help.

After the problem was fixed they took off racing together with both teams as the RX-7 had also arrived and pulled over.

The Commodore needed an extra fuel stop, but the Trans Am – with its additional fuel tank – didn't need to stop again. However, they had run out of money and had to swap the Commodore's spare wheel for a tank of petrol.

They made it to the finish in Perth in third place.

When interviewed after the race, Jeff said they reached speeds of up to 240 km/h.

Peter says that they would have had a much faster time but his brother was urging him to go slower.

On the way back to Queensland after the race, Jeff was stopped for speeding – around 200 km/h – by the same police that stopped Alex Davidson in the Trans Am during the race.

They asked him how he went in the Cannonball and at first, he denied being involved, but when they asked in the Trans Am beat him he said, "Yes".

The police used a plane to stop him as he was going so fast. Jeff and the team took the police out for lunch and let them drive the Commodore. They took some photos of the cars and plane and somehow let Jeff off.

150 kilometres up the road though he was caught by other police for around 150 km/h.