Article: 1985 Bathurst 1000 - Group A Comes To Australia

[Steve Holmes]

Fastest of the local teams was Richards/Longhurst, more than a second slower than the third Jag. But the black JPS BMW would be kinder on its fuel load, as would the Schnitzer car, and both would run more laps between stops. Fifth fastest were Grice/Cullen, followed by Johnson, Perkins, Francevic/Bowe, Brock/Oxton, and Harvey/Parsons. Plenty were having drama’s, including the #17 Johnson Mustang, which split the oil cooler in one of the sessions. But, rather than replace it, the team took the decision to instead weld it up. Also, Grice had destroyed the second Roadways entered car on Thursday after whacking a rock.

The one-lap Hardies Heroes would decide the grid positions for the ten fastest cars from qualifying, as it had done every year at Bathurst since 1978. Just to confuse matters, 1985 would feature 11 cars in Hardies Heroes. The 11th fastest Ravaglia/Cecotto BMW would be drafted in, and while the Perkins Mustang would get to run its lap, would then be withdrawn so Perkins could take his place alongside Johnson.

Come Hardies Heroes, and, as expected, it was an all-TWR Jaguar front row, but the Goss/Hahne machine wasn’t among them. Pushing hard to stay on top, Goss fluffed a gear, and could do no better than 6^th fastest. Behind the two big gleaming Jag’s on the front row was an impressive Johnson, who’d flung the little under-powered Mustang around to be just over 0.6sec behind the second XJS. Next to Johnson was Grice, who took to the one-lap banzai run with his usual gusto. On the inside of row three was the Volvo, while 7^th and 8^th fastest were Richards and Perkins. Ravaglia, Parsons, and Brock rounded out the top 11, though with the Perkins machine being immediately withdrawn, everyone behind him moved up one spot.

Come Sunday morning, and as the Honourable Gerald Lascelles gave the announcement for the ‘most famous words in motorsport’, the streams of balloons were set loose, the pit crews and media scurried off the track, and the engine notes rose. At the drop of the flag, legendary tv commentator Mike Raymond was typically up for the occasion: “They’re racing, and Walkinshaw gets a blind of it, so too does Johnson and Johnson will split them and so does Grice! Taking on the Jaguars it was Walkinshaw who made a blind of it, Allam missed the start completely. They head to the first turn, where Walkinshaw, from Dick Johnson, they all go through and now make their way up Mountain Straight”.

As the big field streamed through Hell Corner and up Mountain Straight for the first time, Walkinshaw had Johnson right on his hammer, while Francevic and Grice went through side-by-side, with Allam back in 5th. But by the time they’d reached the top of Mountain Straight, Allam had already powered up to second, followed by Francevic. Johnson went from second to fifth, in the space of a few hundred meters, the little Mustang was well short of legs against its rivals.

Across the top of the mountain, and for traditional Bathurst race fans, the sight of a pair of Jaguars, leading a Volvo, in the opening lap of their great race that had been dominated by Australian machinery for twenty years, would take some getting used to. Of course, they cheered, but were they cheering the European machines, or the local battlers? The top five cars had already pulled out a gap, while Goss in sixth and Brock in seventh were themselves well ahead of the following group. Richards was next, then Hulme. Down Conrod Straight, the Jag’s stretched their legs, and were well ahead as the field crossed the stripe for the first time. Meanwhile, Grice had out-braked Francevic off the end of the straight, and lay third as he set out to start lap two.

In all the excitement off the line, what few people had realised was that Grice had clunked the front right corner of the Allam XJS as he went by, and had broken the Jag’s headlight. The shards of glass were quickly sucked into the engine bay, and into the big V12s intakes, where they ravaged the internals. Allam was in the pits after 3 laps, and there he stayed. Then, a short time later, Grice stopped, heading up Mountain Straight, when a screw from the distributor rotor had worked loose, and jammed in the distributor drive