Quote:
Originally Posted by Amaroo Park
They were never disqualified. Walkinshaw dropped his protest against Longhursts car after it won. But Bondy had a big fight against the protest on his Turbo that went on for months. In the end the charge could not be proven and the fact it was purchased from Garrets the protest was thrown out.
I really believe now as I did then that Walkinshaws protest was to upset the race prep on the leading Sierras, I dont think he expected to find anything but by protesting suspensions and engines etc and having them taken apart before the race it did upset the teams involved. One interesting point was the only Sierra team up there that he didn't protest was the ANZ Allan Moffat team. Which were running Eggenberger Sierras and which only a year before had been found to be illegal.
|
Quite right, no Sierras were disqualified, but both factory HSV Commodores were outed. They were found guilty of using the VK Commodore steering rack and modifying the crossmember to suit it. The VK's was preferable to the VL's variable ratio rack, but it wasn't homologated for use. Neal Lowe - formerly with the HDT - knew this, protested, and both cars were disqualified. I've never seen this reflected in race results, though.
I agree with you about the purpose of Walkinshaw's protest, but wonder why he didn't protest either the Eggenberger car of Moffat's, Wolf car of Mark Petch, or either of the Miedecke Sierras (which had Eggenberger drivers aboard). Maybe the conspiracy theory that it was orchestrated by Eggenberger as payback for the year before wasn't far off?
