1986 Australian Touring Car season | |||
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The 1986 Australian Touring Car season was the 27th season of touring car racing in Australia commencing from 1960 when the first Australian Touring Car Championship and the first Armstrong 500 (the forerunner of the present day Bathurst 1000) were contested. It was the second season in which Australian Touring Car regulations were based on those for the FIA Group A Touring Car category.
Touring Cars competed at 21 race meetings in Australia during the 1986 season, contesting the following events:
The second year of Group A in Australia saw the domination of the JPS Team BMW team fade with several other teams pushing forwards. Most spectacularly was the return of Nissan Motorsport Australia (now under the leadership of former Bathurst winner Fred Gibson) with the newly homologated Nissan Skyline DR30 RS turbo. Led by long time Nissan lead driver George Fury they were the main rival for another new team, the John Sheppard run Volvo Dealer Team, a factory supported team which succeeded the Mark Petch Motorsport Volvo team of 1985. The Touring Car Championship became a two horse race between Volvo's Robbie Francevic and Fury. Fury was never able to haul in Francevic's early points lead and Francevic was crowned champion. Francevic was fired from the Volvo Dealer Team by Sheppard the day after the Castrol 500 at Sandown after refusing to drive what he believed would be an un-competitive car which had only been completed at the meeting started. He then returned to the Mark Petch team as they began development of a Ford Sierra turbo. Although Francevic won the ATCC in the car, 1986 was the last time the Volvo 240T was seen in Australian touring car racing.
Defending ATCC, Endurance and AMSCAR champion, JPS Team BMW's Jim Richards picked up race wins during the season, claiming the Australian Endurance Championship. Peter Brock likewise returned to the winner list for Holden Dealer Team, dominating the Adelaide round of the ATCC before engine failure, and later claiming an ATCC win at Surfers Paradise which would prove to be the last time a Holden won a race in the championship until 1992. Brock's win at Surfers in his Holden VK Commodore SS Group A would also prove to be the 34th and last ATCC race win for the HDT who had won their first ATCC race when coincidentally Brock won at Surfers in 1973 in a Holden LJ Torana GTR XU-1 (Brock contributed 28 of those 34 wins with Colin Bond winning the other 6).
While Richards won the Endurance Championship through consistent placings, the big prizes went elsewhere. Nissan claimed the Sandown 500 with Fury and his new young team mate Glenn Seton (the son of 1965 Bathurst winner Barry Seton who also built the engines for the Nissan team), while Allan Grice and Graeme Bailey returned from their attempt at the FIA Touring Car Championship in Europe to claim victory in the Bathurst 1000, with Grice also winning the Group A support race at the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide.
John Smith claimed the debut title for small touring cars, the distinction for the class was set at two litres leaving a field of Toyota Corollas, Isuzu Geminis and a Nissan Gazelle. The Amaroo Park based Better Brakes/AMSCAR series was claimed by JPS Team BMW's number 2 driver, Tony Longhurst driving the team's secondary car, a BMW 325i, the forerunner to 1987's BMW M3.
Australia hosted the opening two rounds of the inaugural South Pacific Touring Car Championship with the final three rounds held in New Zealand. The opening round also doubled as Round 5 of the Australian Endurance Championship at Calder Park while Round 2 was the Group A support race at the Australian Grand Prix. Allan Grice who won in Adelaide went on to claim the South Pacific title after a further win at Baypark in NZ.
The 1986 Australian Manufacturers' Championship was awarded to Nissan.
Tony Longhurst (BMW 325i) won the 1986 Better Brakes/AMSCAR Series for JPS Team BMW from Colin Bond (Alfa Romeo GTV6) and his JPS team mate Jim Richards (BMW 635 CSi). [1]
South Pacific Touring Car Championship – Round 2
This race was a support event at the 1986 Australian Grand Prix meeting. The race was held over 32 laps of the 3.780 km (2.362 mi) Adelaide Street Circuit. [2]
Pos. | Driver | No. | Team | Car | Grid |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Allan Grice | 3 | Roadways Racing | Holden VK Commodore SS Group A | 6 |
2 | George Fury | 30 | Peter Jackson Nissan Racing | Nissan Skyline DR30 RS | 5 |
3 | Graeme Crosby | 6 | Bob Jane T-Marts | Holden VK Commodore SS Group A | 2 |
4 | Larry Perkins | 11 | Enzed Team Perkins | Holden VK Commodore SS Group A | 7 |
5 | John Harvey | 7 | Holden Dealer Team | Holden VK Commodore SS Group A | 9 |
6 | Glenn Seton | 15 | Peter Jackson Nissan Racing | Nissan Skyline DR30 RS | 3 |
7 | Graeme Bailey | 2 | Roadways Racing | Holden VK Commodore SS Group A | 17 |
8 | Tony Longhurst | 25 | JPS Team BMW | BMW 325i | 10 |
9 | Graham Moore | 22 | Strathfield Car Radios | Holden VK Commodore SS Group A | 12 |
10 | Trevor Crowe | 73 | BMW 635 CSi | 13 | |
DNF | Peter Brock | 05 | Mobil Holden Dealer Team | Holden VK Commodore SS Group A | 4 |
DNF | Dick Johnson | 17 | Palmer Tube Mills | Ford Mustang GT | 8 |
DNF | Jim Richards | 1 | JPS Team BMW | BMW 635 CSi | 1 |
Robert James Frančević, is a retired racing driver who featured prominently in New Zealand and Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. His biggest wins were the inaugural Wellington 500 street race in Wellington, New Zealand in 1985 driving a Volvo 240T, and the 1986 Australian Touring Car Championship, also in a 240T. Francevic's win in the 1986 ATCC was the first and only ATCC win by a non-Australian resident.
Jim Richards is a New Zealand racing driver who won numerous championships in his home country and in Australia. While now retired from professional racing, Richards continues to compete in the Touring Car Masters series.
Allan George MoffatOBE is a Canadian-Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins in the Sandown 500 and his four wins in the Bathurst 500/1000. Moffat was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 1999.
Amaroo Park Raceway was a 1.9 kilometres (1.2 mi) motor racing circuit located in Annangrove, New South Wales, in the present-day western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Opened in 1967, the road circuit served as a venue for a variety of competitions including the Castrol 6 Hour motorcycle race, rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship, Australian Drivers' Championship, Australian Formula Ford Championship, Australian Sports Sedan Championship, the AMSCAR Series for touring cars, historic racing and others. The last Australian Touring Car Championship round to take place at the circuit was in 1994.
John Bowe is an Australian racing driver, presently racing a Holden Torana in the Touring Car Masters series.
Allan Maxwell Grice, known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000, and as a privateer driver of a Holden in the Australian Touring Car Championship.
The 1987 Australian Touring Car Championship was a motor racing competition which was open to Touring Cars complying with regulations as defined by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport and based on FIA Group A rules. The championship, which was the 28th Australian Touring Car Championship, began on 1 March 1987 at Calder Park Raceway and ended on 5 July at Oran Park Raceway after nine rounds. The Calder round saw the world debut of the racing versions of the BMW M3, the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth and the Alfa Romeo 75 Turbo.
The 1991 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title open to Group 3A Touring Cars. The title, which was the 32nd Australian Touring Car Championship, was contested over a nine-round series which began on 24 February 1991 at Sandown Raceway and ended on 11 August at Oran Park Raceway, The series was promoted as the Shell Australian Touring Car Championship and was won by Jim Richards driving a Nissan Skyline GT-R.
Gibson Motorsport was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship from 1981 until 2003, though the team had its roots in Gibson's "Road & Track" team which ran a series of Ford Falcon GTHOs in Series Production during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The name of the team was also the name of Fred Gibson's automotive business in Sydney. As Gibson was also a driver for the Ford Works Team, his team was sometimes a pseudo-works team when the Ford factory did not enter.
The 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title open to Group 3A Touring Cars. The championship, which was the 30th Australian Touring Car Championship, began on 5 March at Amaroo Park and ended on 9 July at Oran Park Raceway after eight rounds. The 1989 Australian Manufacturers' Championship was contested over the same eight round series.
The 1988 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title for drivers of Group 3A Touring Cars. It was the 29th running of the Australian Touring Car Championship. The championship began on 6 March at Calder Park Raceway and ended on 17 July at Oran Park Raceway after nine rounds.
The 1986 Australian Touring Car Championship was the 27th running of the Australian Touring Car Championship. It began on 2 March 1986 at Amaroo Park and ended on 13 July at Oran Park Raceway after ten rounds. This was the second ATCC to be run to the FIA's international Group A Touring Car Regulations.
The 1984 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title for Group C Touring Cars. It was the 25th running of the Australian Touring Car Championship, and the last to be contested by Group C cars as new regulations, based on international Group A, were introduced for 1985. The championship, which began on 18 February 1984 at Sandown Raceway and ended on 1 July at Adelaide International Raceway after seven rounds, was won by Dick Johnson driving a Ford XE Falcon.
George Fury is a retired Australian rally and racing car driver. For the majority of his career Fury was associated with Nissan, twice winning the Australian Rally Championship, and twice runner up in the Australian Touring Car Championship. Fury, a farmer living and working in the New South Wales country town of Talmalmo, was nicknamed "Farmer George" or "The Talmalmo Farmer".
The 1985 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title for drivers of Touring Cars. It was the 26th running of the Australian Touring Car Championship and the first to be contested using regulations based on the FIA's International Group A regulations after having been run under CAMS home grown Group C rules between 1973 and 1984. The championship began on 10 February 1985 at Winton Motor Raceway and ended on 14 July at Oran Park Raceway after ten rounds.
The 1983 Australian Endurance Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title for drivers of Group C Touring Cars. The championship was contested over a six round series with all rounds run concurrently with those of the 1983 Australian Endurance Championship of Makes.
The 1986 Castrol 500 was an endurance race for cars complying with CAMS Touring Car regulations, which were based on FIA Group A rules. The event was staged on 14 September 1986 over 129 laps of the 3.9 km Sandown International Motor Racing Circuit in Victoria, Australia, a total distance of 503 km. The race, which was Round 3 of both the 1986 Australian Endurance Championship and the 1986 Australian Manufacturers' Championship, was the 21st "Sandown 500" endurance race.
JPS Team BMW is a former Australian motor racing team that ran from 1981–1987. The team's main focus was touring car racing but also ran in sports sedans and GT cars as well. The team, under the management of former British Touring Car Champion and Formula One racer Frank Gardner, was based in Sydney and completed almost all of their testing at the old Amaroo Park circuit with Gardner himself doing most of the test miles in the various BMW's the team raced.
AMSCAR was a touring car championship held in Australia between 1982 and 1997, based at Amaroo Park in Sydney.
The 1984 Australian Touring Car season was the 25th season of touring car racing in Australia commencing from 1960 when the first Australian Touring Car Championship and the first Armstrong 500 were contested. It was the last season in for the locally developed Group C category before the move to the FIA's Group A rules from 1985.
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