The Roaring Season

From the FIA archives in the Jaguar XJS homologation papers. They show the details when ol Tom pulled the scam of the decade homologating the pre-may type heads despite them being long out of production. "May" type heads were restrictive and designed for swirl to get better fuel consumption, great ...

I thought I was told, or that I read, that the OXO Supercube Cosworth raced in the early part of the 1987 ATCC by Don Smith was a converted XR4Ti. This car was rolled by Smith I remember that roll over! I find this interesting because DJR1 and DJR2 were both built from shells bought from Don Smith ...

I too vaguely recall something about the car being very fast at Bathurst, although I thought this was just its top speed down Conrod Straight, rather than its overall lap speed. It wasn't a top ten car like Robbie boldly predicted a couple of days before the race. Though it would have just missed ...

more on how the rules were being "INTERPRETATED" (flaunted!). The FIA Group A regs stated that aerodynamic aids and body panels were not to be "adjustable". In 1989 Allan Moffat turned up at Sandown with the front bumper/spoiler visibly at a different angle to the norm. When challenged by a non ...

One part of the history of Group A was it was supposed to be by the book and no special favours or considerations granted, aka what was destroying Group C. Group A in Europe was a dogs dinner, all the major teams cheated, most had gentlemen agreements bewteen each other to look the other way ...

millions Oldfart! Like CAMS, the founders of V8Supercars promised it was going to be cheaper and simpler than what Group A had become. That sooned turned into a farce when they started issuing "licences" to build a car/field a team, locking out the real privateers and once a year Sunday drivers ...

An interesting piece of the history of Group A is how the cost quickly escalated. In 1984 when CAMS announced Australia would be adopting Group A for 1985, part of their reasoning was the cost would be lower and the privateers would stand a better chance. This proved to be folly. In 1984 the cost of ...

You sure that's the right chart Jim? What you typed doesn't line up with that chart. It also shows cars in positions 60, 87, 91, 96 etc. Its only a 55 car grid. You must be reading it wrong, those are Car numbers not positions. Across is no of laps, down is position on the track. For instance, Car ...

"The car was finished only the day before the 1986 Sandown 500 Endurance race, were it DNF'd as it also did a month later at Bathurst when John was running in second place. Ok, I'm picking at straws here but Mark Petch is wrong, Car 44 never got to the dizzy heights of position 2. It did reach ...

Nice to see a reply from the person who knows for sure the history of the car. One can guess whose delicate ego was bruised On a different topic, look how small the falcons discs are! Obviously this car is not built to full group A specs, very hard too tell but it appears to be running standard ...

though eventually losing the WTCC after having been found to be fitted with illegal front flares It wasnt only the flares, that was just the visible bit, Frank also protested the size and shape of the inner guards. Most Sierra's had difficulty on "bumpy" tracks like Bathurst when fitted with 17 ...

Full Race [video=youtube;-GHRTRkogWA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GHRTRkogWA[/video] what a shame that is marked private because it looks to be good quality. The posts following it are of the latter race. This one was at the start of the year whereas the others are the world touring car round ...

Robbie Francevic was one of the drivers, having fallen out with the Volvo Team Australia after winning the '86 Australian Touring Car Championship in a 240T. to be fair to Volvo Robbie had a fall out with the team manager, not the maker. Team manager John Sheppard was notorious for being a "my way ...

There sure are some variations in same car engine capacities in that entry list! Did the person entering the car state the capacity instead of what it was supposed to be under group a regs?

I'm stunned this track every passed international safety rules

Great shot here of Dick Johnson in the Anderson Falcon. Johnson qualified the big Ford in 1.32:37, yet from the standing start, he completed the opening lap in 1.32:04. From there he punched in an amazing 1.31:1 on his second lap, and first flying lap, and after two tours, was already 4.5sec ahead ...

it will buff out

It arrived at Wanneroo Western Australia on a trailer, but I dont know if it crossed the Nullarbor like that or in a transporter, I can't remember

The first outing of Allan Moffat's brand new Rudi Eggenberger built Sierra RS500. Surprised everyone when he appeared, not many knew he had one!