Rod, guess that would be Glen Clark.Originally Posted by Rod Grimwood
Rod, guess that would be Glen Clark.
That's him Grant, good guy, had trailer outfit called 'Pinto Trailers' it's coming back.
New South Wales I think Lindsay. He raced in Group C for several years, best known for racing a very successful Mazda RX7 sponsored by Slick-50. Great looking car, as all his cars were. It was yellow and black. He ran a Commodore in the early years of Group A from 1985, and was drafted into the Holden Dealer Team at last moment in 1987 to drive the teams second car, #10, alongside Jon Crooke, which Peter Brock and David Parsons jumped into when the 05 car broke early. The #10 HDT car was later declared the race winner after finishing third on the road when the Eggenberger RS500s were disqualified.
He ran this Walkinshaw Commodore for a short time, but then stopped racing.
Brock and Parsons replaced Crooke who subsequently seems to have disappeared.
Jon Crooke is still around and going strong. Here's his most recent venture, following on from the "Hyperstimulator"......
http://www.hyperracer.com/index.html
I had forgotten about Brockie jumping in the second car in 87.I remember him and Larry Perkins doing it in 84 in the John Harvey car but then I always liked the group C cars more.
David Oxton's Sierra At Wigram .Wasn't this the car that Paul Radisich raced and won the championship with in England?
I love that car, and in those colours. Looks fantastic! Lindsay it was Andy Rouse who raced this car in the BTCC in 1985 and won the championship before it made its way to NZ. Rouse shared the car with David Oxton in a couple of events before Oxton took it over for the NZ series. Great looking car, but was ultimately a little disappointing.David Oxton's Sierra At Wigram .Wasn't this the car that Paul Radisich raced and won the championship with in England?
This car is still MIA I believe?
Steve - love TRS, have been reading it from the UK for a while, finally thought I might be able to add something useful…
Andrew Bagnall and I did a deal to buy the ex-Andy Rouse car and a Datapost Escort RS1600 turbo for the 1986 NZ season. We also arranged for Paul Radisich to return to UK F3 in 1986 with Murray Taylor. THe Ford was a German-market Merkur that Andy had built into a winning car. Ran 2.3L Pinto turbocharged, very effective but nothing on the RS500s about to come out. We did the deal directly with Stuart Turner at Ford, so I guess they must have owned the car, not Andy. David Oxton drove mainly, sharing with Andy on the longer events. Bags and I ran the Escort in the long races as well. Merkur wasn't as successful as we had hoped, believe it went to Australia after that, but not sure….
Despite some great races and good podiums, Paul never won the UK championship but he did of course win the 1994 (Monza) and 1995 (Donnington) Touring Car World Cups with the Ford Mondeo. I was sharing his (small, motel!) room with him at Monza and it was a real thrill to hear the NZ anthem played over the circuit - bettered only by the dinner that evening when the whole room rose and applauded him as we walked in. Monza grid had 14 current or ex F1 drivers all in Super Tourers, so he did pretty well!
Very sorry to read the sad news re Dave McKinney - great bloke.
Rob Whitehouse
Trevor Crowes BMW.I think Jim Richards and Tony Longhurst came 4th at Bathurst in this car in 85
Hi Rob, fantastic first post! Many thanks, its great to have you here.
Thanks for the info on the Sierra. I'm pretty certain its first NZ race was the 1986 Wellington Street Race, where Rouse and Oxton shared the car. Rouse put it on pole, but it suffered a mechanical problem early on. They would have driven the car together at the Pukekohe 500km race the following weekend as well. Then Rouse would have headed back home and Oxton drove the car on his own throughout the remaining NZ touring car events.
At some stage, the car ended up with Mark Petch, and he took it to Australia. He entered it at Bathurst in 1986, and 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. Leo Leonard was the other driver. They qualified 21st, but were out of the race after 27 laps. From there, the trail seems to dry up. It didn't race in NZ the following season, and it doesn't appear to have raced in Aus again. It just sort of quietly disappeared.
Like you say Rob, it wasn't as successful as you'd hoped, but it was still a significant car, having won the 1985 BTCC. And, furthermore, it was a lovely looking car.
Steve, it was a dog. It had a few successes here in NZ but was as unreliable as the weather. I recall at 86 Bathurst it broke so many rockers we could have started up our own foundry and supplied metal to the Chinese!!!!
Dave
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 or the highway" bloke and butted heads with Robbie on the direction the car was being developed and tested. Robbie wanted to be involved with both but team manager John Sheppard saw him as "just a driver" and refused to involve him, Robbie was so passionate about it he left the team after one race when the car didnt show up at the track until just before the end of qualifying and wasnt set up and he had to get dispensation to start at the rear of the grid
As for the Petch XR4T, it had a habit of popping off rockers (not breaking them, though it did break one in the race itself) at Bathurst, Rouse had built the engine with a 6500RPM redline but the only gearing available had the car doing 7200 down conrod!
There was an excellent article on the career of Robbie put together by Gerard Richards in New Zealand Classic Car mag several years ago. Robbie said pretty much the same thing in the interview.
Frosty, know what you mean but not cars fault, the car did not put the engine together, and they were still pretty experimental back then and different parts than available for some other outfits.
It was a nice looking car and had finished a couple of races in BTCC. so was right at some stage,
levels raceway, late 80's
I see Mark Petch has just purchased this car. This is not the Belgian GTM car he owned in 1985 that won the Wellington Street Race, but rather the second car that came on board in 1986 as part of the Volvo Dealer Team, and driven by John Bowe.
His Facebook posting reads:
"After a lot of investigation and negotiation I am very pleased to have been able to purchase John Bowe's GpA, Australian Touring Car Championship Volvo 240T that has been the subject matter on my timeline below.
"The car has an incredible history and is not the only surviving RAS Factory Volvo team car, but also the very last Volvo Factory "Works" GpA 240T car built. The car was assembled in Australia by the Australian Volvo Dealer Team, by key team mechanic Geoff Grech [who went on to become the Team manager at HRT] and a young fabricator, name unknown, who fabricated the first Chrome Moly roll cage ever run in a Volvo Works car in place of the Factory cars previously used Aluminium tube bolted together roll-cage.
"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. All three AVDT cars including my own car that helped Robbie Francevic to the ATC Championship win in 1986 were returned to Sweden, when Volvo pulled out of GpA racing, In privateers hand's the car was immediately successful and dominate the 1987 Swedish Touring Car Championship driven by Peggen Andersson.
"The car went on to compete in many other races by various other drivers, including Sweden's famed Ulf Granberg. The car was purchased by Knud Knud E. Sørensen a Danish driver, who had just started to race, and against the later crop of cars such as the Ford Cosworth RS 500's it proved less than competitive. It was sold to another Danish aspiring racing driver who lived in Spain were it disappeared for 14 years, before being advertised for sale in 2009 when, Thor Rustad's a Norwegian, purchased the car and stripped it down to bare metal and commenced at 6 year long, 2,476 Hour, complete rebuild of the car to as new condition, 100% period correct to when the car was last raced by John Bowe and Alfi Costanzo at Bathurst in 1986".
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 position 3 on lap 42 and then pitted falling to position 7, worked it's way up to position 6 (it was having an entertaining dice with johnson in the mustang) just before it fell away into obscurity on lap 55, thanks to the rear aluminium trailing arms failing
Here is a transcript of the Official Lap Charts, taken from Bill Tuckey's 1986 book of the race
Nice. Hope we can see it at the Festival in January.
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