[William Dale Jr]

1989 Shell Ultra Australian Touring Car Championship
Championship Results

Interestingly, although the Shell cars were clearly the fastest for the bulk of the ATCC they were nowhere near as dominant as the year before, and not once did they score a team 1-2.

Of the challengers, Brock may have been in championship contention had he started the season in better fashion. Despite well-sorted cars - Brock's was Rouse's weapon for 1988, winning the TT and very nearly the BTCC - the team lacked experience with the cars, compounded by a lack of suitable Bridgestones at the start of the year. Longhurst finished down in fifth despite having a quick car all year, not quite managing to challenge for race wins on a regular basis. The Nissan team had recovered well after a terrible 1988 to pose a genuine threat to the Sierras on the tighter, tyre-sensitive circuits.

Disappointments of the year included the disasters that befell Miedecke Motorsport, and the absence of a factory Holden effort. Miedecke looked poised to finally capitalise on the potential he'd shown since the Castrol 500 in 1987, with a team of excellent personnel - including Ross Stone - and finally decent sponsorship. Then came the disaster of Lakeside. With almost nothing salvageable off the wreck, the building of a replacement put an unplanned strain on the team's budget, although Kenwood and Yokohama did kick in to help the team out in a crisis. Sadly it was a setback from wich the team never quite recovered, not helped by Bathurst and Adelaide, but more of that later.

The no-show of Holden this year helped contribute to the state of touring car racing today. We only have to look to 1990 and 1992 to see what the VL was finally capable of once fully developed. It's not hard to imagine a slightly different picture had any development work been done on the car through 1989. The hole left by their absence wasn't filled by privateers, most of whom didn't have the money or expertise to develop the car, while Larry Perkins busied himself with his engineering business, proving popular with AUSCAR and Formula Holden racers. Although the VL wouldn't have been fully competitive through 1989 perhaps with a cohesive factory development program, suitable driven by challenges from Les Small at Roadways, the car would have been competitive enough to challenge for podiums and even wins at places like Winton (where Larry qualified slower than he had in the old VL the previous year) and in the long distance races. With no Holdens in the top runners, dissent began to grow among fans - stoked along by Channel 7 - over the state of touring car racing, which would eventually lead to the 1991 ultimatum delivered to CAMS by Ford, Holden, and Channel 7... but more on that later.

Position	Driver	Car	R1	R2	R3*	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Total
1	Dick Johnson	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500	10	20	10	12	20	20	(4)	15	107
2	John Bowe	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500	20	12	6	20	12	12	(3)	12	94
3	Peter Brock	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500		15	5	10		15	15	20	80
4	Jim Richards	Nissan Skyline GTS-R HR-31	15	6	3	4	15	10		4	57
5	Tony Longhurst	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500			7.5	15	10	8	2	8	56.5
6	George Fury	Nissan Skyline GTS-R HR-31	12	1	2	2	6		20	3	46
7	Glenn Seton	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500	8	10						10	28
8	Colin Bond	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500		8	1	8		6			23
9	Mark Skaife	Nissan Skyline GTS-R HR-31					8	1	12	1	22
10	Brad Jones	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500	3			6			8		17
11	Allan Moffat	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500	4					4		6	14
12	Neville Crichton	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500		2	1.5	3	4	2			12.5
13	Andrew Miedecke	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500	2	3					6		11
14	Allan Grice	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)							10		10
15	Andrew Bagnall	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500		4							4
	Gregg Hansford	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500			4						4
17	Chris Lambden	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)			0.5		3				3.5
18	Larry Perkins	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)						3			3
19	Joe Sommariva	BMW 635 CSi					2				2
	Robbie Francevic	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500								2	2
21	Mark Gibbs	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)	1								1
	Tim Slako	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)				1					1
	John Faulkner	Toyota Corolla AE82 Hatch					1				1
	Garry Willmington	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)							1		1

Points allocation: 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1.
() indicates dropped score
* indicates R3 (Lakeside) worth only half points. Johnson unsuccessfully petitioned for full points to be awarded for the race.

Meanwhile, Toyota took out the Manufacturers' Championship, courtesy of George Fury's win at Winton.

Position	Driver	Car	R1	R2	R3*	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Total
1	Toyota Motor Corp Australia Ltd		9	9	(3)	9	9	9	9	9	63
2	Ford Motor Co of Australia		9	9	(4.5)	9	9	9	6	9	60
3	Nissan Motor Co (Australia)		6	4	0.5		6	3	9		36.5
4	BMW (Australia) Pty Ltd									9	9
5	General Motors-Holden's								3		3

Also worth a mention is the Jim Clark Cup, a very unofficial championship that was devised and awarded by industry journalists and Stuckey Tyre Service. It was specifically for normally-aspirated cars and was named in honour of the seperate Formula 1 Drivers' championship for normally aspirated cars in 1987.

Points were awarded in the F1 format of 9,6,4,3,2,1. I've put it together as best I could, but if it's wrong it doesn't really matter anyway since it wasn't an official championship! Funnily enough, it was given better coverage than Manufacturer's Championship points...

Position	Driver	Car	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Total
1	Chris Lambden	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)		9	9		9	1			28
2	Gerald Kay	Holden Commodore VK	3	4	6	3	1	3	(1)	6	26
3	John Faulkner	Toyota Corolla AE82 Hatch	2	2	3	1	4		4		16
4	Garry Willmington	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)	6		1				6	2	15
5	Brian Callaghan	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)	4							9	13
6	Graham Lusty	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)		6				6			12
	Joe Sommariva	BMW 635CSi		3	2		6			1	12
8	Tim Slako	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)				9		2			11
9	Mark Gibbs	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)	9								9
	Allan Grice	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)							9		9
	Larry Perkins	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)						9			9
12	Alf Barbagallo	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)				6					6
13	David Sala	Nissan Gazelle					3		2		5
14	Ross Burbidge	Nissan Gazelle			4						4
	Dennis Norgard	Holden Commodore VL (HDT)				4					4
	Tony Noske	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)						4			4
	Steve Reed	Holden Commodore VL (HDT)								4	4
18	Neal Bates	Toyota Corolla AE82 Hatch							3		3
	Llynden Riethmuller	Holden Commodore VL (TWR)								3	3
20	Peter Harper	Rover Vitesse				2					2
	Geoff Full	Toyota Corolla AE86 Liftback					2				2
22	Russell Becker	Toyota Corolla AE82 Hatch	1								1
	Terri Sawyer	Toyota Corolla AE82 Hatch		1							1