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Old 20 May 2017, 05:20 (Ref:3734588)   #1
Kingair
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Kingair should be qualifying in the top 10 on the gridKingair should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
Larry Vs Tom

I am part way through the DVD celebrating 25 years of HRT, a couple of interesting points that may be answered by those in the know.

1. What year did the UK secret build Commodore of Mr Walkinshaw's make its debut at the mountain?,

2. What year did Tom, takeover Larry's Commodore and flog the living daylights out despite being warned by Larry to keep the revs lower?
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Old 20 May 2017, 05:22 (Ref:3734589)   #2
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Both were in '88, I believe.
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Old 20 May 2017, 05:57 (Ref:3734590)   #3
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Thanks for that.

Larry would not have been happy watching Tom, flog the living daylights out of his engine!
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Old 20 May 2017, 10:24 (Ref:3734626)   #4
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chavez should be qualifying in the top 3 on the gridchavez should be qualifying in the top 3 on the gridchavez should be qualifying in the top 3 on the grid
They must have worked okay together - both of the Commodores at Bathurst were deemed to be illegal.
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Old 21 May 2017, 03:12 (Ref:3734801)   #5
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1. What year did the UK secret build Commodore of Mr Walkinshaw's make its debut at the mountain?,
I haven't seen the DVD admittedly, but i'm not sure how any Walkinshaw built VL in the UK would have been secret?

TWR had the contract to homologate the car for competition, TWR had the intention from the start of entering cars in European events, and ran the new car in ill-fated BTCC event at Birnimgham in 1988, as well as the 1988 TT at Silverstone, both of which were before the 1988 Sandown 500 in which the works cars first competed in Australia.
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Old 21 May 2017, 11:45 (Ref:3734911)   #6
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The secret was that they weren't expecting the TWR-built VL to come out were they?

Mr Perkins had 2 VL batmobiles built and ready to run for 1988.. one became a T car.. and Mr Walkinshaw chose to run his own car.

There was an issue with revs in the Perkins engines.. Mr Small apparently sold parts to TWR for an engine program, maybe not the EFI version, but Holden V8 definitely. In 1986, Mr Grice managed to pull 8,000 rpm out of his Holden powerplant on the way to victory... so maybe Mr Walkinshaw expected that level of hunger from the Perkinsmobile...
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Old 21 May 2017, 12:06 (Ref:3734933)   #7
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Obviously Perkins Engineering knew of the existence of the TWR built VL, it had appeared on Channel 7's review of the Silverstone TT where DJR were in attendance. But the airfreighting of the car to Australia was not what they were expecting. Both cars were very different in build and so it effectively became 2 teams.

Larry was not particularly keen on letting Tom drive, but he was the boss. Despite being briefed on the rev limit, Walkinshaw chose to ignore, but still circulated 2 seconds a lap slower than Denny Hulme had in his stint. When the car expired in the last stint it was in a race winning position, running second behind Tony Longhurst who was about to make a long stop for pads and with Tomas Mezera having to do the final stint.
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Old 21 May 2017, 12:26 (Ref:3734940)   #8
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When the car expired in the last stint it was in a race winning position
A moot point really given the car was declared illegal after the race

Even with a longer stop, the B&H Sierra had the pace with both drivers to see off any real threat towards the end of the race.
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Old 21 May 2017, 22:18 (Ref:3735141)   #9
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Once I have finished the DVD, I will pass it onto Ryan Walkinshaw!

Looks like big Tom, decided to drive Larry's Commodore like he had stolen it!
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Old 22 May 2017, 04:03 (Ref:3735175)   #10
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A moot point really given the car was declared illegal after the race

Even with a longer stop, the B&H Sierra had the pace with both drivers to see off any real threat towards the end of the race.
It would not have been good for the sport for the "winner" of the Great Race to be disqualified two year in a row.

Walkinshaw did the sport a favour.
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Old 22 May 2017, 07:42 (Ref:3735202)   #11
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Larry was not particularly keen on letting Tom drive, but he was the boss. Despite being briefed on the rev limit, Walkinshaw chose to ignore, but still circulated 2 seconds a lap slower than Denny Hulme had in his stint. When the car expired in the last stint it was in a race winning position, running second behind Tony Longhurst who was about to make a long stop for pads and with Tomas Mezera having to do the final stint.
IIRC, that run at Bathurst in '88 was Walkinshaw's last race as a driver, and he would have been a bit ring-rusty, not having raced regularly since the Rover ETCC programme finished at the end of the '86 season.

After that, as I recall he did the Fuji touring car race and part of the Nissan-Mobil 500 in NZ (just Wellington I think) with the XJS over the winter of 1986/7, and had a run at the Nurburgring WTCC round in '87 in the rarely-seen VL, then nothing until the three appearances with the VL Batmobile in the second half of '88- Birmingham BTCC, Silverstone TT and Bathurst.

That's little more than half-a-dozen races (and one of those he never actually raced, just qualified) in the last two years of his career as a driver- You can see one reason Perkins was less-than-keen about the idea of Walkinshaw driving

Last edited by KA; 22 May 2017 at 07:51.
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Old 22 May 2017, 07:45 (Ref:3735203)   #12
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A moot point really given the car was declared illegal after the race

.
What was illegal about the cars, I'm an old fart and my memery is slipping
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Old 22 May 2017, 07:55 (Ref:3735204)   #13
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I'd have to dig out books to be certain, but weren't there some differences in spec between the Perkins and UK-built examples of the Batmobile- and a few between the UK car and the homologation papers...?

From very vague memory, so I'm probably wrong, front spoiler and steering rack come to mind?
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Old 22 May 2017, 09:21 (Ref:3735216)   #14
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Originally Posted by KA View Post
I'd have to dig out books to be certain, but weren't there some differences in spec between the Perkins and UK-built examples of the Batmobile- and a few between the UK car and the homologation papers...?

From very vague memory, so I'm probably wrong, front spoiler and steering rack come to mind?
Maybe an explanation should be placed here :-) http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...ht=fred+gibson
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Old 22 May 2017, 11:01 (Ref:3735235)   #15
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I'd have to dig out books to be certain, but weren't there some differences in spec between the Perkins and UK-built examples of the Batmobile- and a few between the UK car and the homologation papers...?

From very vague memory, so I'm probably wrong, front spoiler and steering rack come to mind?
From the Tuckey book:

"...The UK-built car had a softer spring and damper setup than the Perkins Commodore, and was using UK-built front uprights and their own rear axle with aluminum uprights....
....The Perkins cars (10 and 40) used his Harrop-built braking system, the TWR car an AP-designed system."

Basically Walkinshaw had his own ideas on how to set up a Commodore (as per the above, plus brake pads, tyres, ride-height), despite there being 8 years of data available through PE.

As for who blew up Larry's engine:

"Walkinshaw got into the Larry Perkins Commodore at precisely 2.24 pm"
"At 3.48 it was Walkinshaw in to give the car to Perkins for the run home" (in second place)
"Meanwhile, Perkins was being unmerciful with his Commodore....he was hammering in 23-24's...But on lap 132 he was suddenly six seconds slower..."
"The oil pump drive had broken and a rocker arm had gone...The engine had lost oil pressure, and the crew changed the oil pump, but when it re-started they couldn't get a decent reading, so they decide to call it a day."


And then there's Larry retrospective analysis of it all on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qh7wEDFcB
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Old 22 May 2017, 13:08 (Ref:3735258)   #16
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The secret was that they weren't expecting the TWR-built VL to come out were they?

Mr Perkins had 2 VL batmobiles built and ready to run for 1988.. one became a T car.. and Mr Walkinshaw chose to run his own car.
Wasn't the second Perkins VL, that became the #40 T-car, a converted 1987-spec VL that Perkins had debuted in the '87 Calder 500 and used throughout the 1988 ATCC?

Maybe the Perkins side thought Walkinshaw was coming to Australia to drive a PE car, but as the head of the program, i'd find it hard to believe Walkinshaw and the TWR side of the equation would have ever had the intention of coming all the way out here without their own equipment.
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Old 22 May 2017, 13:28 (Ref:3735264)   #17
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Wasn't the second Perkins VL, that became the #40 T-car, a converted 1987-spec VL that Perkins had debuted in the '87 Calder 500 and used throughout the 1988 ATCC?

Maybe the Perkins side thought Walkinshaw was coming to Australia to drive a PE car, but as the head of the program, i'd find it hard to believe Walkinshaw and the TWR side of the equation would have ever had the intention of coming all the way out here without their own equipment.
That chassis went to Mr Reithmuller didn't it, then onto Lansvale Smash Racing, and later Glenn Mason's Homebush Intersection team...?
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Old 23 May 2017, 01:22 (Ref:3735385)   #18
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While the collapsed 1988 Walkinshaw UK-built car got rejigged and became the 1990 winner.
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Old 23 May 2017, 05:53 (Ref:3735412)   #19
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That chassis went to Mr Reithmuller didn't it, then onto Lansvale Smash Racing, and later Glenn Mason's Homebush Intersection team...?
I think that was the lineage, the car is back in Perkins 1988 spec now and has appeared at a few recent Muscle Car Masters
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Old 23 May 2017, 06:52 (Ref:3735420)   #20
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What was illegal about the cars, I'm an old fart and my memery is slipping
They were protested during qualifying by Dick Johnson- More from Billy Tuckey's book:

'Johnson immediately fired in his counter-protests on the Walkinshaw Commodores. These covered a number of areas, but most importantly nominated the steering racks as modified VK Commodore racks instead of the variable-rate power steering racks as fitted to the homologated VL, and the way they had been extended to fit the different VL front cross-members by welding aluminium end-lugs. The other major complaint concerned the front spoiler of the No.10 Perkins car'
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Old 23 May 2017, 07:23 (Ref:3735427)   #21
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That chassis went to Mr Reithmuller didn't it, then onto Lansvale Smash Racing, and later Glenn Mason's Homebush Intersection team...?
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I think that was the lineage, the car is back in Perkins 1988 spec now and has appeared at a few recent Muscle Car Masters
The lineage for PE0004 is mentioned locally here (along with all PE chassis), and detailed here by the sleuth.
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Old 23 May 2017, 22:50 (Ref:3735582)   #22
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DJR had a bit of inside information courtesy of team manager Neal Lowe's previous HDT involvement.

The whole protest saga kicked off when Walkinshaw lodged protests against the DJR, Longhurst and Colin Bond Sierras on the Friday, (turbo chargers specifically IIRC) but not Allan Moffat's with conspiracy theories that Rudi Eggenberger may have advised Walkinshaw on what to go for. In turn DJR protested the HSV Commodores. As there were no road going RS500s in the country, a ruling was not able to be reached, so the relevant cars started under a cloud.

At some stage on raceday, not sure if it was after HSV were out of the running, Walkinshaw announced that he would withdraw the protest against the race winning car to allow the result to stand. Think it later came out that the protest would have been thrown out, because it could only be lodged by an entrant. TWR had lodged the protest, but the entrant for the HSV entries was Perkins Engineering.
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Old 24 May 2017, 08:05 (Ref:3735615)   #23
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DJR had a bit of inside information courtesy of team manager Neal Lowe's previous HDT involvement.

The whole protest saga kicked off when Walkinshaw lodged protests against the DJR, Longhurst and Colin Bond Sierras on the Friday, (turbo chargers specifically IIRC) but not Allan Moffat's with conspiracy theories that Rudi Eggenberger may have advised Walkinshaw on what to go for. In turn DJR protested the HSV Commodores. As there were no road going RS500s in the country, a ruling was not able to be reached, so the relevant cars started under a cloud.

At some stage on raceday, not sure if it was after HSV were out of the running, Walkinshaw announced that he would withdraw the protest against the race winning car to allow the result to stand. Think it later came out that the protest would have been thrown out, because it could only be lodged by an entrant. TWR had lodged the protest, but the entrant for the HSV entries was Perkins Engineering.
Didn't Walkinshaw pull the protest, from whichever Sierra would win the race, on the Saturday night? I recall it being mentioned on the pre-race coverage, but could be mistaken?

Neal Lowe left HDT before the February 20 meltdown in 1987, would he really have had much inside connections on the goings-on of an SV Racing Commodore in October 1988?
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Old 24 May 2017, 08:21 (Ref:3735619)   #24
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I'm pretty sure Walkinshaw pulled the protest on the winning car during the closing stages of the race on the Sunday. This gesture was apparently not highly thought of.

Lowe would have known the difference between a homologated VK & VL prior to leaving the HDT, and probably would have kept track of the details when the 2nd VL was introduced.
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Old 24 May 2017, 11:55 (Ref:3735654)   #25
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Regarding the secretly TWR-built Commodore coming out here for Bathurst, I'd forgotten one part that makes me doubt this story even more, the fact that talk of entering a third car for the team had been rumoured throughout the 1988 season. John Harvey was originally suggested as a driver for it before deciding to drive with the Bob Forbes team, with the likes of Grice & Percy linked to the car as well (particularly after their Nissan team entry decided against competing)

This quote from John Harvey in the book "Bathurst 1988"

"Then he (Tom Walkinshaw) offered me a drive in the third car!" The ex-HDT man guffawed at that "I was No.2 for 12 years, There's no way I was going to be No.3!"

If TWR weren't going to bring their own car, how could a third car have been offered up if Perkins only had two?

If I remember correctly though, Perkins wasn't happy that he'd done his development work on Dunlop tyres, but Walkinshaw was testing Yokohama's in Europe and did the deal for those tyres to be used at Bathurst.

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I'm pretty sure Walkinshaw pulled the protest on the winning car during the closing stages of the race on the Sunday. This gesture was apparently not highly thought of.
The protest was withdrawn before the race started

From the "Bathurst 1988" book

"The protest hanging over the car for the day was withdrawn automatically when Mezera took the flag. Before the start, Tom Walkinshaw had in an unconventional move asked the stewards to withdraw the protest if one of the five cars he protested was first across the line"
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