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

[racer69]

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

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;

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