[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by William Dale Jr

1990 Shell Ultra Australian Touring Car Championship
Round 1 - Amaroo Park, NSW (25/2/1990)
also Round 1 of the James Hardie Building Products AMSCAR Series

Circuit Length: 1.946 km
Race Duration: 50 minutes (55 laps)
Weather: Sunny and Hot

Qualifying times marked in red don't match the grid.

Found this clip from the race on YouTube - enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UKEkX247RA

Qualifying was disturbed by a wet track drying up towards the end. This caused some ususual grid positions like John Faulkner splitting the Larry Perkins and Win Percy Holden Commodores with the TTA Toyota Corolla in 15th to be only 0.18 seconds down on defending champion Dick Johnson!
Jim Richards, from fourth on the grid in the lead Nissan Skyline, got off to a blinder of a start. With better tracktion off the line he simply outdragged the Ford Sierra opposition up Bitupave Hill was never headed again. John Bowe in the second Shell Sierra was next all the way, keeping Richards honest for victory through the first half of the race. That was when he clipping the pit wall armco with the rear end of his car, but was lucky to get away without a puncture or worse. Qualifying 13th team mate Dick Johnson made the best from a lousy grid position as he made his way through the pack. This could have been fourth, because Nissan number two driver Mark Skaife was in the hunt for that final podium finish, only to be sidelined by mechanical failure by the halfway mark.
The Benson & Hedges cars had set the pace in qualifying wiht Alan Jones starting in pole just ahead of Tony Longhurst in third. In the race though they pair just didn't had the ultimate pace, with Longhurst finishing fourth and Jones dropping way of the pace to finish eigth. In between was the two Mobil Sierras of Peter Brock and Andrew Miedecke and the ANZ car of Gregg Hansford. These three drivers never seemed to be far from each other covered by a couple of seconds by the finish. Colin Bond in the Caltex Sierra was another driver to be caught out in qualifying. Unlike Dick Johnson he never featured in the race and ended up a lowly ninth from best of the Holden Commodores.
Despite the strong presence of Win Percy and Larry Perkins, it was Mark Gibbs in the GIO car that took the final point for tenth. Percy strugled with tyres, forcing him to pit while noise issues did the same for Larry Perkins. The Peter Jackson team crashed a car in Friday practice, but Glenn Seton still made it to the start in the second team car. He seemed destined for a battle with the Mobil and ANZ cars, but a pitstop for new tyres relegated him to a lowly 12th, from Murray Carter. The Victorian veteran surpriced by qualifying 10th, but never on the pace in the race.
Based on the above clip and Autosport report.

Looking at the last lap footage it seems Reda Awadallah was just about not lapped by winner Jim Richards when the chequered fell. I then suspect that Awadallah - of Egyptian origin it seems - went straight to the pit and technically never completed his last lap causing his "retirement".

More to come, I expect.

Jesper