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Originally Posted by racer69
It's interesting to look at how many RS500s there were being used, especially in the BTCC, but there were very few teams/drivers to really get the hang of them properly to be competitive.
In the BTCC there was only really Andy Rouse Engineering (encompassing the Labatts cars & the Kaliber/ICS cars) & Trackstar who were consistently competitive, although Jerry Mahony did get a win to open the 1988 BTCC
In the ATCC you had DJR the only regular Sierra winners from 1988-1992. Longhurst's team scored a few wins, and Colin Bond got a pair of wins in the 1990 ATCC (thanks to his Toyo tyres it must be said), while most other runners locally were inconsistent when up the front.
Elsewhere you had Eggenberger & Wolf doing the bulk of the Sierra fornt-running.
Thoughts?
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Part of the explanation probably lies in the immediate succes of the RS500 in late '87. Every privateer had to consider the RS500 and some jumped for it, but without, what I suspect, the technical or monetary back-up.
Talentet rallycrosser Mark Rennison sold his RS200 to finanse his '89 RS500 BTCC campain, admitting it was a very low-key orporation - and went nowhere and out of the championship before the fall. That same year the three car Terry Drury assault was at one point reduced to a single entry mid-season, put together of what was still workable. Drury though delivered the engines for rallycrosser Kenneth Hansen and was a compination that started Kenneths way to stardom.
Andy Rouse was in on the development of the Sierra RS Cosworth and by that already had intimate knowledge that no one on the British isles caught up for a couple of years. Trakstar imported the best Australian cars at the time and even built their own Dick Johnson replica for Robb Gravett's championship winning 1990 season.
In Australia the traffic went the opposite way. Dick Johnson was Sierra RS Cosworth bound from year one and held that position till around 1990. Peter Brock started his two year association with the RS500 in 1989 by buying a pair of updated Andy Rouse '88 cars and thus was partly up and running before the season started. Have also heard that these cars were Rouse kits, but don't know which version is true.
Colin Bond got a break thanks to a six-tyres-per-meeting rule in 1990 and Toyo rubber, but the only other Australian RS500 that ever challenged the DJR Shell was Glenn Seton Racing. It took two seasons of trials and tribulations before Seton generally ruled over the Shell cars in 1991.
The Tony Longhurst cars were quick but not durable enough. Andrew Miedecke could have been a candidate, since he was around from '87 as well, but always seemed to run low on cash. Somehow he didn't star when he got the second Peter Brock-seat for 1990, but had that something to do with being second to Brock in Brock's team? I'm certain that there's plenty of knowledge about that subject on this forum!
Jesper