1987/1988 New Zealand Group A and Production Saloon Car Racing - Discussion & Results

racer69 · 21 Dec 2011, 08:15 (Ref:3002551)

This thread here is to discuss the late-1987 and early 1988 touring car events in New Zealand

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendonwood1

My memory is that the 1987/88 races consisted of the Nissan Mobil 500 at Wellington, the Benson & Hedges 500 at Pukekohe a week later and a New Zealand Touring Car Championship of several rounds in January.

I don't believe that there were any South Pacific Touring Car Series rounds in NZ during 1987.

I suggest we start a thread.

The Channel 9 TV coverage of the 1987 AGP continually calls the 32-lap Group A race as Round 1 of the South Pacific Touring Car Championship, and the "Racing Car News" report on the race opened it's account with;

Quote:

The first round of the South Pacific Touring Car Championship didn't exactly have the "world class" fields we'd seen at Bathurst, Calder and Wellington - the Ravaglia's, Percy's, Soper's, Ludwig's, Pirro's etc weren't there, but who really cared? We had Brock, Johnson, Fury, Grice, Seton, Bond and Perkins, and they were more than enough as far as the crowd was concerned

So there was at least the intention of another SPTCC to start with.... i'm only assuming that New Zealand rounds would have featured as per the 1986/1987 series, but perhaps not as brendonwood alluded to, or perhaps it just fizzled out as a whole.

The WTCC round at Wellington attracted a quality grid, included some surprises like the SRS Volvo's, Tony Longhurst in one of the BMW Motorsport M3's etc...

The B&H 500 a week later at Pukekohe used the longer track, and featured a great scrap between the Allan Grice/Gianfranco Brancatelli BMW M3 (the Cecotto/Brancatelli car from Bathurst/Calder/Wellington WTCC races) and the Bowkett/Baigent Nissan Skyline, and a controversial ending due to the Nissan drivers calculating the race distance on the old track, not the new one (IIRC)

Plenty to talk about anyway

KA · 21 Dec 2011, 09:28 (Ref:3002578)

Quote:

Originally Posted by racer69

The Channel 9 TV coverage of the 1987 AGP continually calls the 32-lap Group A race as Round 1 of the South Pacific Touring Car Championship, and the "Racing Car News" report on the race opened it's account with;

So there was at least the intention of another SPTCC to start with.... i'm only assuming that New Zealand rounds would have featured as per the 1986/1987 series, but perhaps not as brendonwood alluded to, or perhaps it just fizzled out as a whole.

The FIA announced an Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship for the latter half of the 1988 season (October/November)- According to Frank de Jong, it was originally schduled as Bathurst, Macau, Calder and Wellington, but ended up as Bathurst, Wellington, Pukekohe and Fuji.
How early was this announced, and if it was first proposed at the beginning of the year, could it have led to the ditching of any proposed South Pacific Series over the winter of 87/8?

http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jong/Pages/APTCC.html

MalcolmC · 21 Dec 2011, 09:30 (Ref:3002579)

Quote:

Originally Posted by racer69

So there was at least the intention of another SPTCC to start with.... i'm only assuming that New Zealand rounds would have featured as per the 1986/1987 series, but perhaps not as brendonwood alluded to, or perhaps it just fizzled out as a whole.

An initial look through my info seems to agree with this. The Auto Action report on the Adelaide GP Support Race (14-Nov) states that it is round 1 of the SPTCC and they admit they have no idea where round 2 is to be run.

The key race meetings for the NZ Summer were:
26-Oct-87, Wellington, WTCC Round 10. (This was held on a Monday which was a public holiday in NZ).
1-Nov-87, Pukekohe, B&H 500.
3-Jan-88, Manfeild, B&H International Series (aka NZTCC) Round 1.
10-Jan-88, Baypark, B&H Series Rnd 2.
17-Jan-88, Pukekohe, B&H Series Rnd 3.
24-Jan-88, Wigram, B&H Series Rnd 4.
30-Jan-88, Timaru (Levels), B&H Series Rnd 5.
The was the end of the season for the top cars with Trevor Crowe winning the 1988 NZTCC in his BMW M3.

However just to complicate things a little, the under 2 litre Group A cars competed for a separate championship (NZ 2 Litre TCC) and as well as the five B&H series rounds they raced at two more meetings:
7-Feb-88, Teretonga.
14-Feb-88, Ruapuna.
This championship was won by Brett Riley in a Toyota Celica (If I remember correctly it was the ST-162 body shape with a boot rather than the hatchback).

I haven't found any mention of the SPTCC in the programme for the B&H series so perhaps Dick Johnson can claim to be the SPTCC champion. I'll post some more info soon.

Malcolm.

KA · 21 Dec 2011, 09:38 (Ref:3002584)

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmC

The key race meetings for the NZ Summer were:
26-Oct-87, Wellington, WTCC Round 10. (This was held on a Monday which was a public holiday in NZ).
1-Nov-87, Pukekohe, B&H 500.
3-Jan-88, Manfeild, B&H International Series (aka NZTCC) Round 1.
10-Jan-88, Baypark, B&H Series Rnd 2.
17-Jan-88, Pukekohe, B&H Series Rnd 3.
24-Jan-88, Wigram, B&H Series Rnd 4.
30-Jan-88, Timaru (Levels), B&H Series Rnd 5.
The was the end of the season for the top cars with Trevor Crowe winning the 1988 NZTCC in his BMW M3.

Interesting that after moving to the October slot for the WTCC round (and therefore running two races in '87, Jan and Oct), Wellington seems to have stayed there for 1988, enabling it to fit into the calendar for the Asia-Pacific series run over October/Novermber 88, before reverting to it's 'traditional' January date for 1989.
Is this why Auto Action had no idea where the second SPTCC round would be- the FIA were already talking about canning it in favour of something else later in the year?

MalcolmC · 21 Dec 2011, 10:04 (Ref:3002592)

Quote:

Originally Posted by KA

Wellington seems to have stayed there for 1988, enabling it to fit into the calendar for the Asia-Pacific series run over October/Novermber 88, before reverting to it's 'traditional' January date for 1989.

The 1989 Wellington Nissan Mobil 500 was 3-Dec-89.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KA

Is this why Auto Action had no idea where the second SPTCC round would be- the FIA were already talking about canning it in favour of something else later in the year?

I'll keep looking but most of the rumours/reports on international touring car championships in late '87 are about the demise of the WTCC so any talk of the SPTCC seems to have been overshadowed.

Malcolm.

racer69 · 22 Dec 2011, 05:22 (Ref:3003010)

Quote:

Originally Posted by KA

The FIA announced an Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship for the latter half of the 1988 season (October/November)- According to Frank de Jong, it was originally schduled as Bathurst, Macau, Calder and Wellington, but ended up as Bathurst, Wellington, Pukekohe and Fuji.
How early was this announced, and if it was first proposed at the beginning of the year, could it have led to the ditching of any proposed South Pacific Series over the winter of 87/8?

The November 1987 issue of "Racing Car News" has a story on the FISA announcement of the 1988 international motorsport calendar. This is when the axing of the WTCC was announced, to be replaced with the rejuvenated ETCC and an "Oceania Touring Car Championship" (other calendars released at the same time were F3000, World Sportscar & WRC)

The 1988 Oceania Touring Car Championship was announced as;

Rd1 - October 2 - Bathurst
Rd2 - October 9 - Calder
Rd3 - October 23 - Wellington
Rd4 - November 13 - Mt Fuji
*plus one or two other events (but they are not speculated on in the story)

In the course of time the series was re-named the Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship, Calder pulled out (Mike Raymond mentions during the Bathurst commentary that circuit owner Bob Jane was just fed up with FISA organisation). Macau obviously came into contention then went out again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chunterer

Hmm what did Spicey Gricey make of the little buzz bomb then?

The Auto Action report i have featured no direct quotes from Grice (nor Brancatelli). Grice steered some good M3's in 1987 though, the Schnitzer example at Spa as well as the ex-CiBiEmme car here, so he was given some good vehicles to form an opinion (he also raced an M3 in Japan in mid-1989)

The AA report doesn't have any results of the B&H 500, there was a decent entry though.

Andrew Miedecke/Phil Mhyre (Sierra - his OXO car, though sponsored by DSIR as at Wellington)
Grice/Brancatelli (Mark Petch ex-CibiEmme M3)
Baigent/Bowkett (Skyline)
Trevor Crowe/Robbie Francevic (Archibald M3)
Charlie O'Brien/? (Archibald 635)
Graeme Camaron/? (presumebly Wayne Wilkinson - Commodore)
Inky Tulloch/Gary Croft (U-Bix Copiers Volvo 240)

Quote:

Originally Posted by KA

Wellington seems to have stayed there for 1988, enabling it to fit into the calendar for the Asia-Pacific series run over October/Novermber 88, before reverting to it's 'traditional' January date for 1989.

I don't think the Nissan-Mobil Series ever reverted back to January, it always stayed in the November/December period, and acted as a 'season-ender' for the Australian teams (and Schnitzer).

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmC

(If I remember correctly it was the ST-162 body shape with a boot rather than the hatchback)

One of these cars was driven by John Smith in the 1987 AGP support race (presumebly because TTA was short of cars after Bathurst).

Member malscar has a picture of it from this event.

MalcolmC · 22 Dec 2011, 08:40 (Ref:3003044)

brendonwood1 · 22 Dec 2011, 11:07 (Ref:3003126)

Quote:

Originally Posted by racer69

The Auto Action report i have featured no direct quotes from Grice (nor Brancatelli). Grice steered some good M3's in 1987 though, the Schnitzer example at Spa as well as the ex-CiBiEmme car here, so he was given some good vehicles to form an opinion (he also raced an M3 in Japan in mid-1989)

The AA report doesn't have any results of the B&H 500, there was a decent entry though.

Andrew Miedecke/Phil Mhyre (Sierra - his OXO car, though sponsored by DSIR as at Wellington)
Grice/Brancatelli (Mark Petch ex-CibiEmme M3)
Baigent/Bowkett (Skyline)
Trevor Crowe/Robbie Francevic (Archibald M3)
Charlie O'Brien/? (Archibald 635)
Graeme Camaron/? (presumebly Wayne Wilkinson - Commodore)
Inky Tulloch/Gary Croft (U-Bix Copiers Volvo 240)

.

Yes, the entry was good. This was actually the first ever motor race, which I attended as a 13 year old with my father.

Miedeckie grabbed the pole from Brancatelli, Baigent, Cameron, Kieran Wills (Skyline), O'Brien and Crowe.

In the race itself, Miedeckie led for the first half hour until turbo problems intervened. Brancatelli took over the lead and kept it until the pitstop. However, the BMW refused to restart for Grice and they lost valuable time, ending up 30 seconds behind the Baigent Nissan.
Grice hunted down the Nissan and the two engaged in a seven lap dice before Grice got through and then led to th end.

The top three were:
1. Brancatelli/Grice, BMW M3
2. Baigent/Bowkett, Nissan Skyline
3. Crowe/Francevic, BMW M3

The notes are from the same AA article racer69 is referring to. A bad photograph of the article is attached.

brendonwood1 · 22 Dec 2011, 11:39 (Ref:3003139)

Quote:

Originally Posted by racer69

Charlie O'Brien/? (Archibald 635)
Graeme Camaron/? (presumebly Wayne Wilkinson - Commodore)

Thanks to the links to the entry and qualifying results for the Wellington race as provided by MalcomC, we can be fairly confident that Avon Hyde shared the 635CSi with O'Brien and that Wayne Wilkinson shared the CanAm Commodore with Graeme Cameron.

**chunterer** · 21 Dec 2011, 09:30 (Ref:3002580)

Hmm what did Spicey Gricey make of the little buzz bomb then?

He seemed to have sampled a few different Group A cars around that 12 month period.

Commodore, M3, Skyline.. Did he ever have a go in an RS500?

brendonwood1 · 30 Dec 2011, 13:22 (Ref:3005518)

Browsing "Graeme Crosby BMW" on google resulted in finding this website, with a history of BMW racing in New Zealand: http://www.nzfmr.co.nz/info_pages.ph...te/pages_id/46

The article mentions that the Graeme Crosby car is the "the first ever Group A BMW 635CSi, chassis number RA001."
This may indicate that it is the ex-Eggenburger car?

brendonwood1 · 31 Dec 2011, 00:20 (Ref:3005735)

So, let me clarify this in regard the ex-Synter CC cars.
Mike Newman acquired one in 1985 and continued to race it for several years and probably still owns it.
Frank Synter took one to NZ in early 1985 where he shared it with new owner John Morton. Morton kept this car for a few years and shared it with Jim Richards in the 1986 series. It was then sold to John Sorensen and raced by him for a few more years.
Charlie O'Brien acquired one car and brought it to Australia in time for the 1985 Bathurst 1000. He raced it for a few years and won the Pukekohe round of the 1986 Simpson series in this car.
Finally, an ex-Synter car was leased to Graeme Crosby/Lew McKinnon. They raced in the 1985 B&H 6 hour race at Pukekohe and won the 1986 Nissan Mobil series. I'm assuming they leased it from Graeme Lorimer who took it back, painted it in silver DSIR colours and raced it in the 1986 Bathurst 1000 and the various NZ races during 1986/87. The car was then sold to Warren McKellar, painted yellow (just like the Eggenburger display car earlier in this thread) and was raced by him for a few more years. This is the car discribed in a number of articles as "Chassis RA001" and is referred to as the "first" Group A BMW 635CSI.

So, we have four ex-Synter BMWs. Three were sold to NZ/Australia. All three had some level of success in NZ (Morton's car was 2nd in the 1985 Wellington Nissan Sport 500, Crosby won the 1986 Nissan Mobil series and O'Brien won the Pukekohe round of the 1986 Simpson series).
The two NZ based ex-Synter cars are both still in NZ as far as we can tell.

Have I got this summary right?

MalcolmC · 31 Dec 2011, 01:25 (Ref:3005747)

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendonwood1

Finally, an ex-Synter car was leased to Graeme Crosby/Lew McKinnon. They raced in the 1985 B&H 6 hour race at Pukekohe and won the 1986 Nissan Mobil series. I'm assuming they leased it from Graeme Lorimer ...

The two NZ based ex-Synter cars are both still in NZ as far as we can tell.

Have I got this summary right?

I'm not sure who owned the car when Crosby leased it. I was thinking that Sytner might have still owned the car, but actually the info I've posted above only says that Crosby was leasing an ex-Sytner car.
I also haven't seen the Eggenberger car since 2000, so whether it's still in the country, I'm not sure.
Other than that I fully agree with your summary.

The LHD Sytner/Morton car isn't proving to be too much of a problem. It's the fact that three RHD ex-Sytner cars were racing in '85 (Newman, O'Brien & Crosby), when there was only two in '84, that's a little difficult to sort out.

Malcolm

**chunterer** · 31 Dec 2011, 08:51 (Ref:3005780)

That's true, although it does seem that we now know for sure that only one of the four cars was actually one of Frank's own cars, the other three being the CC cars he purchased to use himself before presumably changing his mind and selling them.

The most interesting aspects out of all of this is that spare car being converted and that all of the cars with the exception of the one sold onto Newman went to Australia or New Zealand and not Uk or Euro buyers.

Lew MacKinnon · 12 Jan 2012, 23:33 (Ref:3010962)

Nice to see there is some interest in the events of 1986! For the record:

The RHD 635CSi (001) was leased from Sytner via Aucklander John Morton. Morton actually drove a LHD 635 in the 1985 Wellington Street Race with Frank Sytner (whilst I drove a locally built VK Commodore). In fact, there is speculation to this day that Morton / Sytner actually won the 1985 race but were pushed back into 2nd due to lap scoring errors by the officials! But I digress...

I actually leased the car and it came to NZ under bond. The car was raced in South Africa in 1985 / returned to the UK / was rebuilt by the late Ted Grace and sent to NZ for the 1986 races. It arrived in NZ in BMW UK livery. Morton actually put Crosby and I together - and after the 1986 Nissan Mobil Series (in yellow and blue colours), the car had to leave the country - only to return a year later in the hands of Graeme Lorimer (raced under DSIR colours). IIRC, Lorimer purchased it and later sold it to Warren McKellar. McKellar approached me and I actually helped with the set up of the car for subsequent racing. Unfortunately, McKellar had no racing licence / no motorsport experience at all and had to go to Australia to get a provisional licence by paying for a drive with Joe Sommariva in another LHD 635. For McKellar it was a baptism by fire and when he failed to qualify for the next Nissan Mobil in Wellington, I moved into commentary work with TVNZ and he put the car away.

As part of the lease, Ted Grace came to NZ with the RHD car and was instrumental in preparation / running the car. For the 86 Nissan Mobil, Crosby and I shared pits / facilities / info etc with Morton and Jim Richards - Richards, of course, drove the JPS BMW 635 for many years at Bathurst etc and won on several occasions in a Holden with the late Peter Brock.

The BMW's series success in the 86 series was due to all the stars being aligned in our favour - for sure. But the result still looks the same in the book.

Apologies for the long winded post - but hopefully this will help join the dots.

KA · 13 Jan 2012, 18:32 (Ref:3011312)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lew MacKinnon

I actually leased the car and it came to NZ under bond. The car was raced in South Africa in 1985 / returned to the UK / was rebuilt by the late Ted Grace and sent to NZ for the 1986 races. It arrived in NZ in BMW UK livery. Morton actually put Crosby and I together - and after the 1986 Nissan Mobil Series (in yellow and blue colours), the car had to leave the country - only to return a year later in the hands of Graeme Lorimer (raced under DSIR colours).

Hi Lew, welcome aboard! It's always good when someone turns up on here who was actually involved with the cars we're talking about.

Interesting that South Africa crops up in the story again- if 'your' car was raced in SA, I wonder if it was Tony Viana? a very wellknown South African BMW racer of the period, and one of the drivers who drove the second Sytner 635 at the 1985 Silverstone TT?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45161394@N05/

**chunterer** · 13 Jan 2012, 21:06 (Ref:3011368)

Quote:

Originally Posted by KA

Hi Lew, welcome aboard! It's always good when someone turns up on here who was actually involved with the cars we're talking about.

Interesting that South Africa crops up in the story again- if 'your' car was raced in SA, I wonder if it was Tony Viana? a very wellknown South African BMW racer of the period, and one of the drivers who drove the second Sytner 635 at the 1985 Silverstone TT?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45161394@N05/

Yes that was what sprung to mind for me too?

If it did go to SA and Viana was the keeper/driver, it begs the questions as to what series it raced in as i'm pretty sure there wasn't a Group A series at the time, the national series being to a variation on the Group 1 regs?

brendonwood1 · 31 Dec 2011, 10:47 (Ref:3005806)

Interesting to note that you say chassis RA001 was sold to Crosby. A few other sources suggest it was leased to Crosby. As Malcolm says, we aren't sure who owned it when Crosby raced it. Possibly Graham Lorimer or even still owned by Frank Synter?

KA · 31 Dec 2011, 12:51 (Ref:3005846)

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendonwood1

Interesting to note that you say chassis RA001 was sold to Crosby. A few other sources suggest it was leased to Crosby. As Malcolm says, we aren't sure who owned it when Crosby raced it. Possibly Graham Lorimer or even still owned by Frank Synter?

I suspect 'leased' may be more accurate, as I think some of the contemporary reports describe it as being leased rather than sold- IIRC that list I put together included a fair amount of guesswork based on sometimes contradictory info given in the 635 mega-thread... I'd definitely handle some of what I posted there with care...

No idea who owned actually owned it if it was actually leased by Crosby- not least because IIRC it was originally suggested in the 635 thread (as mentioned in that chassis archive post linked to) that Sytner sold it to a Belgian team.

If that bit is correct, then there's another step in the story- how it got from Belgium to NZ...it also suggests that the owner when Crosby leased it was either Australia or NZ-based, rather than still being Frank Sytner?

Frank seems to have got out of the 635 game altogether by the end of 1985, he didn't appear again in the BTCC until 1987 with the first Prodrive M3, and his only 1986 touring car drives were at the two British ETC rounds, buying rides in an Italian 635 and a German 325i respectively.

Lew MacKinnon · 14 Jan 2012, 03:11 (Ref:3011471)

I mentioned earlier that there was a 'dispute' about the results in the 1985 Wellington Street Race. The official results were that the Mark Petch owned Volvo 240 (Robbie Francevic and Michel Delcourt) won from Sytner and John Morton. But Morton kept very good lap records and to this day maintains that he covered an extra lap (that would have given them first place).

I guess the true story was confirmed a year later, when the Producer / Director of TVNZ sport (Iain Eggleton) was a guest speaker at the Hutt Valley Car Club. Eggleton was directing / producing all motorsport for TVNZ at the time.

This was the first ever event for Wellington. Key personnel were seconded from local car clubs and officials were from (mainly) the Manawatu Car Club at Manfeild race circuit (2 hrs away). Lap scoring was done by having one assigned person use a flip chart to turn over - each time 'their' car passed start / finish. Someone from TVNZ was assigned to check the positions of key cars by simply watching the flip charts (no electronic lap scoring until 1986).

Somewhere along the line (due to pit stops), it became a mess and no-one actually knew who was leading. Or second. Or sixth. But the real hero of the day was certainly the Volvo - IIRC, it arrived in Auckland the night before practice and was air freighted in the belly of a Bristol Freighter overnight. It started from the rear of the grid and quickly went up through the field. But for TVNZ, they had live coverage going out and the poior commentators didn't have a clue who was where (and the end of the race was in sight). So Eggleton made the call - HE was the person who told his commentators that the Volvo waS LEADING AND

Lew MacKinnon · 15 Jan 2012, 19:12 (Ref:3012008)

Not sure what happened on comment #46 - but I suspect operator error! It disappeared before I could complete the edit....

Here is the full (edited) comment:

I mentioned earlier about the Wellington Street Race result in 1985 and that John Morton and Frank Sytner felt that they were robbed of 1st place when the win was awarded to the Mark Petch owned Volvo 240 (Michel Delcourt / Robbie Francevic ) with Morton / Sytner ‘s BMW credited with 2nd. Subsequent events indicate that Morton and Sytner may have been right.

This was the first ever event of this nature for Wellington. The track was along arterial streets of Wellington City and back via the wharves, so the circuit could only be completed on the Friday night, with practice scheduled for Saturday and racing on Sunday. But the circuit failed to pass the inspection – all to do with (the lack of) run off areas / positioning of armco / positioning of shipping containers as barriers etc. In the end, the race was run as a NZ National Invitation race rather than an FIA sanctioned race – and this posed major challenges for drivers holding FIA racing licences. Australian drivers were OK but for the likes of Walkinshaw, Percy, Delcourt, it meant a series of late night calls from NZ to Europe for approvals to be given that they could race at all!

Officials for the event came (largely) from the Manawatu Car Club (Manfeild Circuit, some 3hrs north of Wellington) and marshals were largely volunteers from local Car Clubs. Electronic tags in cars didn’t happen until the 1986 races, so lap scoring was via a person assigned to each car, sitting in a trackside grandstand and turning over a small, numbered , flip chart each time ‘their’ car passed. TVNZ assigned a person to watch these scorers / these charts, to keep an eye on leaders / update the commentators. There were no official lap scorer(s).

On the Saturday night (practice was over), the Mark Petch owned Volvo 240T (Francevic / Delcourt) was flown from Auckland to Wellington in a Bristol Freighter and (as it hadn’t practised) it had to start from the rear of the grid. But within a few laps, it was already working steadily through the field.

Anyone watching the TV at the time would have noted that, toward the final stages of the race, the commentators had no idea who was leading. Or who was second. Or sixth. But the Volvo had become the darling of the event – carving its way through the field but having to make several stops because of a flapping bonnet (broken bonnet clip). But the lap scorers couldn’t keep up with the pit stops and several cars were ‘credited’ with incorrect completed laps. But it had become decision time for the TV team.

Fast forward to the following year, and the TVNZ Director / Producer for Sport (Iain Eggleton) spoke of the 1985 event to members of the Hutt Valley Car Club near Wellington. He said that, with 90 minutes left of the race, he had no idea who was leading the race and no-one could tell him. So with the race building to a climax and no-one able to tell whether the BMW or the Volvo was leading, HE made the decision and told the commentators to call the Volvo as leading and for the BMW to be second. And that’s how the TV says it finished. The irony is that Eggleton could just as easily have said the BMW was in front and the Volvo in second.

At the end of the race, Morton and Sytner produced full lap charts done by their team - complete with lap times / cumulative times / pit stops and showed that they had completed an extra lap compared to the laps credited to the ‘winning’ Volvo. But the officials decided that the results were to stand.

It is clear that Morton and Sytner were stiffed by poor lap scoring, but the ‘win’ by the Volvo quickly evolved into folk lore – it was a story too good to change after the fact. I’ve also replayed the entire TV coverage but agree that it doesn’t provide sufficient proof one way or the other.

But because of the lap scoring fiasco in 1985, electronic tags were used in each car from 1986.

GSL · 12 Jun 2012, 16:52 (Ref:3089658)

Hi Guys

Very interesting thread that I have stumbled on to here.

There are some details listed that are incorrect, and I suspect that my memory will be available to fill in some other gaps.

I need a few days to get the facts together and I will repost.

Graham Lorimer

**chunterer** · 12 Jun 2012, 19:27 (Ref:3089737)

Welcome Graham, looking forward to your input and memories!

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