a cover over the front of the car to help warm up the engine. Unfortunately the fuse for the overheating warning light had blown and Moffat's race only lasted until the hairpin on lap one before his rotary engine expired, handing an easy win to Brock. He then won at Wanneroo in Perth, before crashing out of the championship at Surfers Paradise when his Mazda was hit while lapping the XD Falcon of Gary Willmington at high speed going under the Dunlop Bridge at the end of the main straight. Due to the wet conditions the Mazda slid off the road at high speed, took out an ABC television camera cable and slammed head on into a bush that was hiding a tree stump. In what was his biggest crash since rolling his XA Falcon at Phillip Island in 1973, Moffat suffered a fractured sternum and broken finger in the accident, while the RX-7 was a write-off. After his crash at Surfers, there was much speculation in the motor racing press that the 45-year-old was going to retire from full-time driving at the end of the year. Moffat refuted these claims and made his comeback in Round 2 of the 1984 Australian Endurance Championship at Oran Park. Despite suffering from the flu, Moffat put the RX-7 on pole and he and Gregg Hansford went on to win the Valvoline 250 from the XE Falcon of ATCC winner Dick Johnson. Moffat and Hansford then finished second to Peter Brock and Larry Perkins in the Castrol 500 at Sandown, and claimed third at the James Hardie 1000 behind the two Holden Dealer Team Commodores, who staged a 1-2 finish trying to copy what Moffat and Bond had achieved in 1977, though unlike the Moffat Ford Dealers Falcons which were on the same lap, the Brock/Perkins car was 2 laps ahead of teammates John Harvey and David Parsons. Moffat's team entered two cars in the race, but only listed Moffat and Hansford as drivers, and had to fight with Bathurst race organisers the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) to be allowed to start both cars, as both drivers had qualified inside the top 10 (race regulations stated that the top 8 qualifiers were locked in to participate in the Hardies Heroes top 10 run-off, with Moffat 5th and Hansford 6th). Moffat won the fight with the ARDC and his decision to start both