 The Monaro, supplied and sponsored by Wyong Motors, ran the race on one set of used, almost bald tyres, McPhee believing that they were faster than tyres with full tread (race regulations at the time stated the cars had to race on road tyres).Towards the end of the race track marshals around the Mount Panorama Circuit were reporting seeing sparks from the Monaro's Michelin tyres as they had worn down to their steel belts after almost 500 miles (800 km) of racing.McPhee entered the 1969 Hardie-Ferodo 500 originally intending to run one of the new HT Monaro GTS350's, but when he received no help from Holden to do so he instead drove a privately entered XW Ford Falcon GTHO.