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Originally Posted by chunterer
Couple of thoughts/questions.
The TWR Rovers fairly demolished the field at the Brands GP supporter. I can't remember the race details but Rouse retired, so had he been challenging them prior to going out?
I mentioned something about the big class quality in 1985, in that Walkinshaw's brands win may, or may not have been aided by the lesser competition than in 1984 for example.
1986 was again short on numbers and Rouse generally had little competition in the big class. However the '86 TWR Rovers would have been bang up to date as raced in Europe, so sould have been formidable indeed.
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I don't have the GP round race report to hand, but the Motoring News season review article described Allam and Schlesser as being
'in a class of their own. Allam took victory, while Schlesser took pole. In the race they kept each other for company'
The depth of competition in the big class wasn't brilliant in '86, if you bear in mind that only Rouse, Pete Hall and Mike Newman ran a full season- Dennis Leech and Mike O'Brien both missed two or three rounds, and no-one else made more than a couple of appearances
Quote:
Originally Posted by chunterer
I had forgotten that David Sears ran the Celica Supra at that GP round, I thought he had been out in a second Rouse Sierra. This clearly proved that in the right hands this car was still a competitive machine. Shame we didn't see a regular Hughes entry after the Sheene dissappointments of the previous year.
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Sheene and Hughes team did seem to have a tough year with the Supra in '85- a lot of DNFs, and as I remember, the race reports quite often described them struggling with handling problems and other troubles. Sheene's lack of touring car experience couldn't have helped at times, but wasn't the only problem...
Quote:
Originally Posted by chunterer
Separate point entirely and if my memory serves me correctly, whilst we didn't see a Commodore until 1987, I think there were moves afoot to try and encourage the MSA to remove the upper class capacity limit in order to allow a rumoured Allan Grice Holden entry for certain rounds as well as possibly an ex TWR Jaguar XJS entry to re envigorate the quality of the entry in the top class, at least.
It didn't happen but I'm sure it was discussed in the comics that off season?
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It's definitely mentioned in the MN season review-
'Another idea to get the thumbs down was a restructuring of the capacity limits to open up the top group to an unlimited capacity from 3600cc in a manner similar to that seen in the ETC. It was known that if such a move occurred, Allan Grice would try to undertake a few events with his Holden Commodore. Sadly the move was not made in time for the start of the season, and the Holden stayed on the TCC trail'