Kaditcha

Last updated July 03, 2019

Kaditcha was an automobile manufacturer in Australia. The company, formed by Queensland engineer Barry Lock, made open wheel and sports car racing cars, including cars for Formula 5000, Formula Pacific and Australian Formula 2.

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.

Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilizes sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built (Prototype) or related to road-going models.

Formula 5000 was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars that no longer fit into any particular formula. The '5000' denomination comes from the maximum 5.0 litre engine capacity allowed in the cars, although many cars ran with smaller engines. Manufacturers included McLaren, Eagle, March, Lola, Lotus, Elfin, Matich and Chevron.

Sports Cars

The peak of Kaditcha's form was in the mid-1980s when Kaditcha sports cars dominated the Australian Sports Car Championship. Chris Clearihan won the 1982 Championship in a 5.0L Chevrolet powered version, with Kaditcha's finishing that year in 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. Clearihan finished 3rd in the 1983 Championship, which was won by Peter Hopwood driving a later model Kaditcha-Chevrolet that Lock built using a Lola T400 Formula 5000 as its base. Hopwood moved to the Australian Drivers' Championship in 1984 with Clearihan taking over the 1983 title winning car and finished second in the 1984 Championship.^[1]

The Australian Sports Car Championship was the CAMS sanctioned national title for Sports Car drivers in the years from 1969 to 1988. Each championship was contested over a series of races with the exception of the 1975 title, which was awarded on the results of a single race held at the Phillip Island circuit in Victoria.

The 1982 Australian Sports Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title open to Group A Sports Cars. It was the fourteenth Australian Sports Car Championship, and the first to be contested by Group A cars since 1975. The championship was won by Chris Clearihan of Canberra, driving a Kaditcha.

The Chevrolet small-block engine is a series of V8 automobile engines used in normal production by the Chevrolet Division of General Motors between 1955 and 2003, using the same basic engine block. Referred to as a "small-block" for its comparative size relative to the physically much larger Chevrolet big-block engines, the family spanned from 262 cu in (4.3 L) to 400 cu in (6.6 L) in displacement. Engineer Ed Cole is credited with leading the design for this engine.

Kadticha's most famous race car is one that no longer bears its name. The Romano WE84 raced by Bap Romano began its racing life in 1983 as the Kaditcha K583.^[2] Romano used the WE84 (re-engineered by former Williams and Tyrrell Formula One mechanic Wayne Eckersley) to easily win the 1984 Australian Sports Car Championship. It was Australia's first Group A Sports Car built with a closed top and Ground effects aerodynamics like the cars, such as the Porsche 956, seen at the time in the World Endurance Championship. Bap Romano's 1984 ASSC domination was almost complete, setting Pole Position at every round, scoring fastest lap at for each race contested (Clearihan scored fastest lap in Heat 2 of Round 1), and won all bar Round 1 at Calder Park where Romano crashed heavily in Heat 1, damaging the car enough to ensure it was a non-starter in Heat 2. Clearihan's Kaditcha-Chev won Round 1.

The Romano WE84 is an Australian designed and built, mid-engined closed top racing car built to CAMS Group A Sports Car specifications. The car began its life as the Kaditcha K583 when it first appeared in the 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship and was built by the Queensland based Kaditcha owner and former McLaren engineer Barry Lock after he was approached by Brisbane accountant, property developer, timber mill owner and former speedway racer Bap Romano in 1981 with the idea of building a Le Mans type coupe. When the car first appeared in 1983, it was the first closed top Sports Car seen in Australia and looked like an FIA Group C Sports Car rather than the open cockpit Can-Am style cars of previous years. This led to the false belief that it was built to the Group C regulations

The Tyrrell Racing Organisation was an auto racing team and Formula One constructor founded by Ken Tyrrell which started racing in 1958 and started building its own cars in 1970. The team experienced its greatest success in the early 1970s, when it won three Drivers' Championships and one Constructors' Championship with Jackie Stewart. The team never reached such heights again, although it continued to win races through the 1970s and into the early 1980s, taking the final win for the Ford Cosworth DFV engine at Detroit in 1983. The team was bought by British American Tobacco in 1997 and completed its final season as Tyrrell in 1998.

Formula One is the highest class of single-seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and owned by the Formula One Group. The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the premier forms of racing around the world since its inaugural season in 1950. The word "formula" in the name refers to the set of rules to which all participants' cars must conform. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix, which take place worldwide on purpose-built circuits and on public roads.

Most Kaditcha sports cars were powered by either the 5.0L Chevrolet V8 engine, or in the case of the SR781 run by Jeff Harris, the Mazda 13B rotary engine. The K583/WE84 was at first powered by the 3.0L Cosworth DFV V8, originally developed for Formula One. Romano upgraded to the 3.9L Cosworth DFL in late 1984 for the 1984 Sandown 1000 World Endurance Championship race at Sandown in Melbourne. Currently the car runs the 3.5L Cosworth DFZ V8, with Romano having Barry Lock rebuild the car in 2010 following its major crash at Amaroo Park in 1986, the crash ending the cars original racing life.

V8 engine piston engine with eight cylinders in vee configuration

A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder V configuration engine with the cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two sets of four, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft. Most banks are set at a right angle (90°) to each other, some at a narrower angle, with 45°, 60°, and 72° most common.

Pistonless rotary engine internal combustion engine

A pistonless rotary engine is an internal combustion engine that does not use pistons in the way a reciprocating engine does, but instead uses one or more rotors, sometimes called rotary pistons. An example of a pistonless rotary engine is the Wankel engine.

The DFV is an internal combustion engine that was originally produced by Cosworth for Formula One motor racing. The name is an abbreviation of Double Four Valve, the engine being a V8 development of the earlier four-cylinder FVA, which had four valves per cylinder.

After the WE84 was destroyed at Amaroo Park in 1986, it sat in storage for a number of years, though has since been restored by Romano and Lock. While it still carries the name of the 1984 Australian Sports Car Champion, the front nose of the car has retained the moulded Kaditcha logo pointing to its original roots.

Open Wheelers

Kaditcha manufactured cars for open wheel racing, including cars for Formula Pacific and Formula 2. A Kaditcha appeared at the 1981 Australian Grand Prix at Calder Park. Peter Larner qualifying his 1.6L Ford powered car 16th (only 1.5 seconds slower than pole and race winner Roberto Moreno in a Ralt RT4). Larner finished 11th, 3 laps down on Moreno. Ian Bland then drove a Kaditcha in the 1983 Australian Grand Prix, qualifying 20th (out of 24), and finishing 16th (and last), 23 laps down on race winner Moreno after a series of mechanical drama's through the race.

Formula Pacific was a motor racing category which was used in the Pacific Basin area from 1977 to 1982. It specified a single-seat, open-wheeler chassis powered by a production-based four-cylinder engine of under 1600cc capacity. The formula was based on Formula Atlantic, with provision made for the use of Japanese engines.The category was superseded in 1983 by Formula Mondial, which was devised by the FIA to replace both Formula Atlantic and Formula Pacific.

Australian Formula 2, sometimes abbreviated to AF2 or ANF2, is a "wings and slicks" formula racing category in Australia. The category is one of Australia's oldest, dating back to 1964. The current format of AF2 was introduced in 1978. Brian Shead of Cheetah Racing Cars and Garrie Cooper of Elfin Racing Cars were largely responsible for the development of the format, which was devised to suit the needs of Australian drivers, most of whom had little or no sponsorship and had to bear the costs of racing out of their own pockets.

The 1981 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula Pacific motor race held at Calder Park Raceway in Victoria, Australia on 8 November 1981.

Sydney driver Tom Brickley leased the Cosworth BDG-powered Formula Pacific Kaditcha FA82A for the 1984 Australian Grand Prix at Calder Park Raceway. He qualified 22nd of 25 entrants. Brickley collided with eventual race winner Roberto Moreno on lap 75 of 100, and was spectacularly inverted. He later bought the car, converted it to Australian Formula 2 specifications, and won the unofficial Australian Formula 2 Championship in 2000. (The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport's recognition of the Australian Formula 2 Championship as a national title did not extend beyond 1988.)

The 1984 Australian Grand Prix was a race for Formula Mondial racing cars, held at Calder Park Raceway in Victoria, Australia on 18 November 1984. It was contested over a distance of 160.9 km or an even 100 miles.

Calder Park Raceway is a motor racing circuit in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The complex includes a dragstrip, a road circuit with several possible configurations, and the "Thunderdome", a high-speed banked oval equipped to race either clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Roberto Pupo Moreno, usually known as Roberto Moreno and also as Pupo Moreno, is a Brazilian racing driver. He participated in 75 Formula One Grands Prix, achieved 1 podium, and scored a total of 15 championship points. He raced in CART in 1986, and was Formula 3000 champion before joining Formula One full-time in 1989. He returned to CART in 1996 where he enjoyed an Indian summer in 2000 and 2001, and managed to extend his career in the series until 2008. Also raced in endurance events and GT's in Brazil, but now works as a driver coach and consultant, and although this takes up a lot of his time, he is not officially retired yet, as he appears in historic events. Away from the sport, he enjoys building light aeroplanes.

A Kaditcha manufactured car also won the 1990 Australian Hillclimb Championship in the hands of Ivan Tighe using Cosworth BDG power.

Barry Lock

Before forming Kaditcha, Lock had been a successful engineer with the McLaren team in Can-Am racing. He was later involved in the Giocattolo project and the Infiniti sports racing car.

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References

↑ Catford, Barry (1983–84). "Australian Sports Car Championship". Australian Motor Racing Yearbook. 13: 242–253.
↑ Catford, Barry (1984–85). "Our Top Car of 1984 Romano WE84 Cosworth". Australian Motor Racing Year. 14: 18–23.

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[1] Catford, Barry (1983–84). "Australian Sports Car Championship". Australian Motor Racing Yearbook. 13: 242–253.

[2] Catford, Barry (1984–85). "Our Top Car of 1984 Romano WE84 Cosworth". Australian Motor Racing Year. 14: 18–23.