The Roaring Season

Rod Grimwood wrote:This was way before the days of the tyre barrier, in fact could have been reason why it was introduced. And it was wet.
There was a rubbish dump down in the bottom of valley, some one may be able to confirm this as well as it was a common stopping place.

Now you have sand and then tyres.

David McKinney wrote:Too early to be a F5000, especially as its description as "a large U2" suggests it was front-engined

Racer:
Was the car built by Mike Austin, do you know? For some reason I thought it was imported from the South Island, but can't recall anything quite like that racing there either

bob homewood wrote:[ATTACH=CONFIG]14498[/ATTACH]

Here is one for GD66 you might remember the story of this Mini and perhaps some of the guys in it ,not much of a photo I am sorry but this Mini was a bit " different"

GD66 wrote:Cheers Bob, from memory that mini may have had a drinking problem....ie maybe methanol ?
(I'm tapping the side of my nose furtively as I say this...)

John McKechnie wrote:Here at last is a real abandoned lost race car worthy of this title .It has been mentioned earlier on this thread.This is the Team Cambridge Monaro, driven by Rod Coppins in 1969 practice at Pukekohe, and Bay Park. Raced by Grady Thomson 1970 , and equaled outright lap record on large circuit. Also driven in practice Baypark and Pukekohe by John Riley 1972 when owned by Jim Carlisle. Last raced in 1975 by George Bunce. Found like this in Otara 15 years ago.I got it stripped body shell off trademe this year. was mentioned recently in Classic Car Driver. Now saved and will be racing at Hampton Downs 2014

Habu wrote:Kim lived in a place called Waitakaruru on the Hauraki Plains heading towards Thames. I think he first made his mark at Ashley Forest in a Chevette powered by a Rover V8 - remember him tipping it on its lid. He set the record in a Series 1 RX7 that may have been partially financed by Lance Green, who was his co-driver at times. The RX7 was a pretty good car, but Kim still drove the wheels off it - he was quite spectacular to watch. He also drove the Hickman / Murphy Starion, which was originally powered by a Rodeck? V8. He campaigned a Nissan Pulsar GTIR for a period in the early 90's, and was a stalwart of the Woolf Mufflers rally series. As already mentioned, he was killed in a helicopter accident with Chris Barnes. Chris rallied the Renault R5 as noted, and moved on to a Nissan Pulsar GTIR also - I heard a rumour that he was the first person to win a rally in this car in the world - winning the Whangerei Rally in 1991. Another guy who rallied around the same time was Greg Taylor - he ran Mazda RX7's, as did Mike Montgomery, and David Thexton. Greg Taylor owned a business called Central Roadmarking, and also raced at Bathurst a couple of times in a third Sierra RS500 with the DJR outfit. Taylor progressed to the RX7, possibly from a BDA Escort. Chris' daughter Leanne also made her mark a few years ago rallying cars. A great shame when Barnes and Austin were killed, and I heard a rumour way back in the day, that Taylor had throat cancer - hence the reason he spent a fortune on his rallying / racing, but could never substantiate this.

rogered wrote:I could well be wrong, but i have a feeling a don smith car might have been ex ken douglas seirra which was possibly a pre-production car and possibly the first in aust. But i could be well off the mark, just recall reading it somewhere.

Malcolm McLeod wrote:
Lastly, I was reading that the DJR Sierra that Taylor and Kayne Scott drove at Bathurst in 1991? had been sold (to Taylor? at the time), so what has happened to it? How many did DJR actually build altogether - must have been at least 6, as there were two sold to Mike Gravatt/Trackstar at the end of 1988, and Ray Lintott also bought one in about 1990. How many survive?

Malcolm McLeod wrote:Ken Douglas used $80,000 of his own money to import both a road going car, and a spare bodyshell, along with a couple of engines and almost 200 engineering drawings of the modifications required to convert to a Group A racer.
To quote Modern MOTOR magazine October 1986, "Ken's name may not mean much to reader's outside Victoria yet - but believe us that will change soon".

Most of the Sierra's seemed to be Rouse kit-cars, but the Petch car was ex-Wolf (they had a LOT of scrutineering problems at their first race meeting - Franceivic said they turned up at the racetrack to do some testing and discovered a race meeting was going on! - the old European Group A regs v Oz Group A rules).
I think one or two of the later B&H Sierra's may have been Wolf as well? And of course Moffat's cars were Eggenburger cars.

Lastly, I was reading that the DJR Sierra that Taylor and Kayne Scott drove at Bathurst in 1991? had been sold (to Taylor? at the time), so what has happened to it? How many did DJR actually build altogether - must have been at least 6, as there were two sold to Mike Gravatt/Trackstar at the end of 1988, and Ray Lintott also bought one in about 1990. How many survive?

markec wrote:[ATTACH=CONFIG]8938[/ATTACH]