plus new parts (including 19" rear wheels, up from the previous 10") in the August homologation saw the Falcon back as a competitive car, as displayed by Johnson when he easily led the Valvoline 250 at Sydney's Oran Park Raceway before a slow pit stop dropped his car, now painted Green to promote major sponsor Palmer Tube Mills' latest product "Greens-Tuf", back to second behind the Bluebird of George Fury. The Falcon was also on the pace at the 1983 Castrol 400 at Sandown where the long front and back straights suited the over of the 351 V8 engine. Dick qualified the car in 2nd place behind Brock's HDT Commodore (also benefiting from the August homologation) and won the jump at the start. However, his charge would only last only a few hundred metres and before the first turn the Falcon's clutch shredded itself, ending his race. Johnson attributed the failure to the condition of the pit paddock which had been turned to mud following a couple of days of heavy rain, with Dick claiming it was mud in the clutch that had caused the problem. Then came the 1983 James Hardie 1000 where Johnson's Falcon was one of the favourites to claim pole position. Johnson also had a new co-driver in 1983 with 1974 race winner Kevin Bartlett replacing John French who was driving for the factory backed Nissan team. During qualifying it was again the Commodore of Peter Brock which had set the pace, with Johnson a close second and predicting that the Falcon could go even faster. During the Hardies Heroes Top 10 runoff on the Saturday morning, Johnson had his second major accident at Bathurst. On his lap for pole, Johnson ran slightly wide at Forrest's Elbow, with the rear of the Falcon clipping the wall on the exit of the corner. The car then hit tyres which were protruding from the edge of the wall which tore the right front wheel to the right and broke the cars steering. The Greens-Tuf Falcon was destroyed as it ran through a grove of trees. While the car was a write-off, Johnson thankfully emerged from the wreck with little more than a headache and a small cut over his left eye, though he has no memory of the crash, or the lift back to the pits with Peter Brock who was on his warm up lap for his