1987 Australian Touring Car Championship

[DAVID PATERSON]

That first pic is terrifying!

[chavez]

Prior in '87 Channel Seven was really a collection of stations in the major capitals sharing programming while still maintaining a fair degree of independence.

For example the Calder and Amaroo telecasts shared little in common other than one or two commentators. The on screen graphics were different, Calder having on screen timing for example, and the famous Racecam only rarely appeared south of the border.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by anthony81901

The 500 and 1000 were not part of the ATCC / V8 Championship until 2000.

And the world has never been the same since

[NewsStalker]

Looking at those images, considering how hard he appears to hit the Commodore, there is surprisingly little damage (physically) to the externals of the Nissan.

My understanding is that when at Calder, it was 'discussed; with him how he was lifting off on the banking of the Thunderdome and that if he 'needed more time to recover' from Amaroo 'arrangements' could be made. The info I have been given (keeping in mind there is now 20+ years from when this took place) there was some 'concern' for him not having recovered both physically and mentally from the incident. (The team apparently had started using detailed data from the cars after each session analysing what today would probably be considered rudimentary info - throttle, brakes, steering etc)

[PhaseIII]

VERY INTERESTING !!

[DAVID PATERSON]

Originally Posted by NewsStalker

Looking at those images, considering how hard he appears to hit the Commodore, there is surprisingly little damage (physically) to the externals of the Nissan.

I thought the same thing, it looks like a terrible accident, but the Nissan doesn't seem to be that badly damaged.

[brown dog]

Interesting thread to me, I am trying to trace the history of a car I am restoring. Owned by Neville Crichton I believe it may have done some rounds of 1987 ATCC possibly with Denny Hulme at the wheel?

Can anyone give me the entrants/drivers list for all of these 1987 rounds, or point me to where I can find them.

The car then during the 1986 ETCC:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-07-004.jpg


cheers Conrad

[Falcadore]

Originally Posted by brown dog

Interesting thread to me, I am trying to trace the history of a car I am restoring. Owned by Neville Crichton I believe it may have done some rounds of 1987 ATCC possibly with Denny Hulme at the wheel?

Can anyone give me the entrants/drivers list for all of these 1987 rounds, or point me to where I can find them.

The car then during the 1986 ETCC:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-07-004.jpg


cheers Conrad

I'm not sure the car was owned by Crichton, the entry name of 'John Andrew Motorsport' suggests otherwise. One of two first generation Merkur style Sierra turbos to race in the series, at least I believe the car is unrelated to the car David Oxton raced in the 1986 series that Mark Petch acquired prior to Bathurst after Petch and Robbie Francevic parted ways with Volvo, it's potential was quickly obliterated by the RS Cosworths being developed by Dick Jonhson and Neal Lowe at DJR, and Andrew Miedecke and friends over at the Oxo Supercube team.

Didn't have the best finishing record. It's best result was its first at Calder, a 10th placed finish (Crichton) acquiring the only ATCC point the car would ever score. There followed a 15th at Lakeside (Hulme), DNF at AIR (Hulme), DNF at Surfers Paradise (Crichton) which was the cars final appearance. Essentially it was obselete at birth and I wouldn't have been surprised if the team saw the speed of the Johnson cars at Lakeside and AIR and just gave up.

ADDENDUM: deeper search shows the reason for the teams faith in the car after it finished fourth at the early season 1987 Wellington 500 (two sets of NZ enduros were held in '87) with Crichton and British ace Steve Soper driving. The Holden Dealer Team finish 1-2 ahead of Charlie O'Brien in a BMW 635. The Sierra finished five laps down though. No idea where it ran at Pukekohe and the car did not reappear for the late season NZ enduros.

[brown dog]

Brilliant stuff Falc, thanks for that!

I would say that the drivers and teams who raced the car probably will not have a great deal of fond memories of it, however it is probably unfair to say it was obsolete at birth.

This car was clearly part of a much bigger picture. Eggenberger as the nominated works team raced and developed this car in 1986, knowing full well the Cosworth would arrive soon. This car had the same bodyshell and suspension as the Cosworth, it is only really the engine and aero that were different on the Cossie.(several of them were later converted into RS500's, including this car) Eggenberger would have used 1986 to develop the chassis so that when the Cosworth was homologated they could concentrate on engine development, and not worry about getting the car to handle and stop. So it still shares a lot of the Cossie DNA, and certainly played its part in the dominance of its bigger brother. It even managed to win the last ETCC round in 1986.

Regarding this particular car, we will rebuild it and restore it back to its original spec. (it is in Sport Sedan mode at the moment) and we were interested in finding out its history when it was raced as an XR4Ti.

Thank you for the race results you have provided, I really do appreciate that.

best regards
Conrad

P.S. the Oxton car was the Andy Rouse RHD car from the 1985 BTCC, this car we have here car is a LHD Eggenberger car, and both were owned by Mark Petch at the same time. Mark converted this car into RS500 spec. in 1988, and then into a Sport Sedan a year later. I am not sure where the Rouse car ended up.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Falcadore

I'm not sure the car was owned by Crichton, the entry name of 'John Andrew Motorsport' suggests otherwise.

If memory serves me correctly, Mr Crichton owned John Andrew Ford, an Auckland car dealership...

[racer69]

Incidently, the original plan for 1987 with the John Andrews Motorsport/Crichton team was to contest the WTCC in this car. They were using the Nissan-Mobil 500 races to get used to the car for the European campaign...

..unfortunatly due to the rubbish & uncertainty that went on when FISA took the whole thing over from Strathmore/West Nally, the teams plans went south (like those of Roadways & MHDT)

[KA]

That's helped to clear up some of the history of the two Group A Merkur/XR4Ti Sierras in Australia.

As Conrad says, the car wasn't so much obselete at birth (when Crichton first acquired it from Eggenberger, it was pretty much a state-of-the-art 1986-season European Group A car), but rapidly became obselete by the time the Cosworths appeared in early '87- the XR4Ti was very much the interim car for Ford, raced while the Cosworth was developed and homologated.

A very rough timescale of XR4Ti development is that homologation was just after the start of the '85 season, and it was raced successfully by Andy Rouse in the BTCC in 1985/6, taking the championship in '85. As we know, one of Rouse's pair of cars went to Australia at the end of the year to become the Oxton car.

A parallel development programme was run by a couple of German teams (HWRT and ABRinghausen) in '85, with some late-season ETCC appearances.

Eggenberger got the works deal to run the ETCC in 86, and ran two cars, with some occasional ETCC appearances by Rouse and the German teams (HWRT etc). One of the Eggenberger cars, of course then being sold to Crichton at the end of the year.

With the Cosworth coming on stream for '87, that's pretty much the end of the story for the XR4Ti as a front-line Group A car, although some of the German teams continued to campaign it at home into 1987 (and even '88?) in preference to the Cosworth- I think the German series regs gave it a favourable minimum weight over the Cossie?

Conrad- what are the restoration plans for the car? As a Cosworth, or an XR4Ti? and if the latter, as Crichton's car or in '86-season Eggenberger colours?

[KA]

Originally Posted by racer69

Incidently, the original plan for 1987 with the John Andrews Motorsport/Crichton team was to contest the WTCC in this car. They were using the Nissan-Mobil 500 races to get used to the car for the European campaign...

..unfortunatly due to the rubbish & uncertainty that went on when FISA took the whole thing over from Strathmore/West Nally, the teams plans went south (like those of Roadways & MHDT)

How many Australian teams had plans to hit the WTCC trail before FISA messed the whole thing up? HDT and Allan Grice come to mind, you've mentioned the Crichton/John Andrew car. Any others? Didn't the Baigent/Bowkett Nissan NZ Skyline effort have WTCC intentions as well?

[brown dog]

Originally Posted by KA

Conrad- what are the restoration plans for the car? As a Cosworth, or an XR4Ti? and if the latter, as Crichton's car or in '86-season Eggenberger colours?

Hello Ka,

The plan is to restore it back to XR4Ti spec, probably as it was when Crichton ran it here in the 1987 Wellington race (only a few stickers difference from when Eggenberger ran it!) It was always white as far as I know, with minimal sponsorship/signwriting. To do this, we will find a donor XR4Ti road car, for parts we are missing such as bumpers, LHD dashboard crash pad, wheelarches, mouldings etc. The Gp.A suspension & brakes are still there, and we have located one of the original engines from the car and will hopefully have that soon.

With the prices genuine Gp.A RS500's are fetching, this car will be a much more affordable alternative for a bit of historic racing, and has the appeal of being an ex-works car which has had a couple of famous bums in the seat, which should ensure it has some value at the end of the restoration process. And if the stock Gp.A Pinto does not prove fast enough, a visit to Esslingers website can have you an all-alloy Pinto race engine capable of serious hp for very reasonable money, if the need for more speed enters into the equation!

cheers Conrad

[KA]

Originally Posted by brown dog

With the prices genuine Gp.A RS500's are fetching, this car will be a much more affordable alternative for a bit of historic racing, and has the appeal of being an ex-works car which has had a couple of famous bums in the seat, which should ensure it has some value at the end of the restoration process.

Thanks Conrad- it's also a rarer car than an RS500 from a historic point of view. There were far fewer XR4Tis raced than RS500s in Group A originally, and I don't know how many are still around- one of the ex-DTM Ringhausen cars ended up in Finland and was for sale a while ago,
http://www.race-cars.com/carsold/for...1/sierx1ss.htm , and there was a discussion on here a while back about the sad remains of a club rallycar here in the UK which might have been built around an ex-Rouse shell. Apart from yours, and mention of the Rouse car that went to Australia, I don't recall the current whereabouts of any others being mentioned on here

[Sultan]

Originally Posted by William Dale Jr

The race meeting at Surfers still went ahead, but the 300 didn't. It was the last meeting before the circuit closed.

I can confirm that - I was there!! I was all 14 years old, & finally got to go to that track, & to see all these Gp A cars, only to turn up to a club meet!!

But it was the first time I got to hang around the pits with Tony Scott who at the time was driving an extremely rapid RX3 sport sedan, & I also recall John English driving the Ex McLeod Slick 50 RX7 as a sports sedan - would love to have that now!!

I'll have to dig up the old photos..

From memory, it may have been the 2nd last meeting, the last one being a club bike racing meet, but I could be wrong...

[Slartibartfast]

You can see the car mentioned in this footage from the Adelaide ATCC 1987: http://www.motorsportmad.com/view/7696/