One for the older guys

[Dutchy]

I can just recall in the early to mid 1980's there was a announcement about a Australian motor racing team supposedly going somewhere overseas to race in Commodores painted in green and gold. i remember seeing Alan Grice and Dick Johnson on the news talking about it there was other drivers but i cant recall who they were. It never eventuated. Does any one else remember it? If so what was it all about and why didnt it get off the ground? Also any one know any of the other drivers?

[louonline]

That would be a good question for Ray Bell over on the Procar Forums.

[GTRMagic]

It was an Allan Grice initiative... he was hoping to put together a fleet of Commodores to run in Europe in the ETCC, and from all accounts, had Mr Johnson, Mr Brock amongst others committed to go running unfer this "Team Australia" banner.

Except they couldnt find the sponsorship... and a lone white Les Small-run VK made its way to selected European rounds of the ETCC... while Mr Brock took the HDT effort over similar ground...

Very ambitious project, but needed millions of dollars to run 3 cars, with works support from Holden (which Mr Grice never really had, presumably this is why Mr Brock was brought in)

[Dutchy]

Thanks for that GTR. I always remembered seeing it on the news but i forgot all about the ETCC.

They would have been a good team as that white Les Small built car was a jet in Europe. It seemed faster than Brocks better funded HDT Commodore

The year was 1986. Grice and Small (along with Graeme Bailey) flew the Aussie flag showing up the Brock operation at most rounds, often challenging and sometimes leading the gun Rover, Volvo and Ford teams.

What Grice learnt racing the Europeans put him in good stead to win him Bathurst that year. The Commodores also won the prestigious Kings Cup (the overall manufacturers result) at the Spa 24 Hour.

[Big Mac]

Didn't Moff and Harves go to Europe in 1987 with a Rothmans(?) sponsored Holden?? They did well at Monza if i remember correctly.

[racer69]

They did the first 3 rounds, plus Spa, where they won their class and came 4th overall behind 3 BMW M3s. They did very well at Monza, finishing 7th on the road behind 6 BMW M3s, before the six BMWs were disqualified, promoting The Harvey/Moffat Commodore (bought a few weeks earlier when Brock had the HDT garage sale) to first place and winning the first ever World Touring Car Championship round. Never saw the trophey (as mentioned in another thread), weren't eligible for prizemoney and weren't eligible for points..........

Grice contested most of the rounds of the ETC in 1986, missing 2 or 3 in the middle somewhere (left after Hockenheim like the HDT, but while the HDT returned for Spa only, Grice returned earlier at the Nurburgring and stayed to the end of the year). Bailey was only part of the deal until Hockenheim. After that Grice relied on pay drivers to stump up the cash to drive alongside him. They weren't all bad though, like Belgian Michel Delcourt, and former F1 driver David Kennedy.

Despite having no development due to no budget, he was usually on the pace in qualifying, and in the early laps, but after a while dropped off the pace. One of his most impressive drives of 1986 was at Zolder (where he also starred two years later in the Nissan), leading well before the usual troubles intervened.


Grice's (and others) 1986 ETC results can be viewed here - http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...86%20ETCC.html

Moffat/Harvey (and others) 1987 WTCC results can be viewed here - http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...87%20WTCC.html

[Dingo]

Originally posted by GTRMagic
Very ambitious project, but needed millions of dollars

At the time IIRC the Australian dollar lost a fair chunk of its value, which didn't aid matters...

[cavvy]

Gricey picked up a factory drive with Nissan UK following the Commodore exercise, with Win Percy I think??

[mixxer]

Under Howard Marsden guidance at the time wasnt it

[Henry]

While initially the other drivers liked the idea in principle, I believe it was unlikely that Brock would have at the time considered anything other than an HDT-administered sortie (as eventually happened)... all supposition of course.

Grice however made an indelible impression, not only due to his outright pace, but also in that he was quicker than the rather slick and well-presented Mobil squad, who very obviously to all present were the "works" Holden squad. In many ways, the ETCC foray was a validation of Grice's press-on style: while previously (in the Group C days especially) there had been need to baby the cars and hold to a conservative approach, in Europe it seemed that there were very few beg-pardons given: if the car couldn't stand the punishment, the car needed beefing up (IIRC Gricey - or another VK driver of the ilk - has recalled that there were a number of bash plates fabricated to allow Euro-style kerb jumping... as it was the only way to get halfway competitive).

Win Percy has also said (again IIRC) that it was Grice who pushed for Win's inclusion in the Nissan squad later in the decade (not that Win's case would take much pusing I am sure...), and that this was part of why Win went to bat for Gricey's seat in the HRT in 1990 (against Walkinshaw's wishes as I recall).

As a young tin-top fan at the time, it was exciting to see the local heroes and cars mixing it overseas... for that brief span through '85-'87, Group A was truly a magnificent spectacle for this black duck

[Trev Campbell]

Not long after, 87 or 88 dick went to Europe, he absolutly canned every other Sierra for outright pace at Silverstone IIRC (Unfortunatly the car broke), proving we had some of the fastest Group A cars in the world flying around our Aussie tracks. I think it was also Dick who homogated the diff, Ford 7 inch ???? that enabled the car to get off the line without breaking.

[mitzi dude]

Dont remember much But I do have the Bathurst Ford vidio tape.

[Bruce Moxon]

Originally posted by Trev Campbell
Not long after, 87 or 88 dick went to Europe, he absolutly canned every other Sierra for outright pace at Silverstone IIRC (Unfortunatly the car broke), proving we had some of the fastest Group A cars in the world flying around our Aussie tracks. I think it was also Dick who homogated the diff, Ford 7 inch ???? that enabled the car to get off the line without breaking.

I think it was 89 that Dick and JB went to the TT race at Silverstone and, yes, were very fast until there was a minor problem. On the strength of that, DJR started selling Sierras to BTCC teams (Rob Gravett comes to mind). The Aussie car was on pole and fastest in the race - not bad eh?

The diff was the Ford 9" - still in use in the V8 Supercars - both kinds. The 9" is one of the strongest standard diffs in the world - the Euros still call it the Dick Johnson diff I believe. It was used in WRC Ford Escorts (the turbo 4WD ones) - at the rear only, of course.



Bruce Moxon

[MHDT]

Just to put my 2 cents worth in:

The timelines being discussed:

1986 - ETCC races with VK Group A Commodore involvement in Europe (Grice & HDT Teams)
1987 - WTCC year with VL Group A wins in round 1 & round 9
1988 - DJR entry into the Silverstone ETCC race; Grice & Percy entry into the ETCC series with Nissan Skyline.

This link is to a Swedish site mentioning DJ's contribution to the Group A Sierra program: http://www.algonet.se/~cossie/RS500-.HTM

[Henry]

1988, the start of 2 1/2 years of Formula Sierra. DJR really got a handle on the Pommie rocket, through a lot of hard work and bulk funding, and little tricks like buying up their season's fuel supply early, rather than relying on the best fuel they could get at each round... that alone must have saved them a pile of engines. According to contemporary reports of the day, Neal Lowe was learning German (or picking some up as he went), the better to liaise with the people at Bosch with regard to the engine management on the Shell cars.

Apart from Gravett (who I think may have cleaned up the BTCC in an ex-DJR Sierra), the only other DJR "customer" car I can recall was Ray Lintott's Valvoline example from 1990. They did however, sell Brock some wheels...

[racer69]

Gravett won the 1990 BTCC in a Dick Johnson Sierra, run by the Trakstar team (which included British Television personality Mike Smith in the second car)

The Commodore Grice used in 1986 stayed in the UK afterwards, bought by Alan Docking Racing and driven by Mike O'Brien in 1987 (in VK trim), taking a win at Snetterton, and 1988 (updated to VL specs and later VL Walkinshaw). British publication 'Motorsport' even did a track test on it. Be interesting to find out what happened to this car.

One of the HDT cars stayed in Europe after the Brcok campaign as well, being used by John Cleland and Vince Woodman, and run by GM Dealer Sport. Another car that would be interesting to see what happened to it, and why it stayed in England.

[Steve Holmes]

racer69, is the 1986 Grice Euro Commodore not the Chickadee car? I always assumed (never assume?) that they were one and the same. Hey, you learn something new everyday! Isn't Chickadee in the Bathurst museum?

[GTRMagic]

Mr Small built at least 2 VK Commodores from the Roadways equipe in 1986... the Chickadee car was meant for European duties, but the funds couldnt be raised to ship it overseas and run... so Mr Bailey took delivery instead...

.. and they won Bathurst with it

[Gaz170]

IIRC although Dick was meant to be part of Gricey's "star" team of drivers, he was always doubtful due to the fact he received Ford backing for his Mustangs at the time. He wasn't really willing to bite the hand that feeds him. He talked about it in one of his magazine columns (Australian Motor Racing or Chequered Flag?) at the time.
Graeme Bailey was never part of the original deal, this was done after the funding for the "team" couldn't be found.

[William Dale Jr]

Originally posted by racer69
Gravett won the 1990 BTCC in a Dick Johnson Sierra, run by the Trakstar team (which included British Television personality Mike Smith in the second car)

Actually, the car Gravett won the 1990 BTCC in was a Trakstar-built unit, built up during the off-season.

The cars that were sold to Gravett were the two oldest in the fleet, DJR1 and DJR2. Gravett used DJR1 (the ex-Johnson-87/Bowe-88 car that finished 2nd at Bathurst in 1988) while Smith got the ex-Hansford car, converted to RHD. Also, apparently they suffered an engine failure early in the year and decided to switch to motors built by Dave Mountain.

For 1990, Smith's car was rebuilt, Gravett got a brand spanker, and DJR1 was sold to, or at least driven by, Graham Hathaway in a few rounds of the championship. One of the cars (DJR1) still lives in the UK, there's a website somewhere on the car.


[QUOTE]Originally posted by GTRMagic

Mr Small built at least 2 VK Commodores from the Roadways equipe in 1986... the Chickadee car was meant for European duties, but the funds couldnt be raised to ship it overseas and run... so Mr Bailey took delivery instead...

IIRC, he also built another VK in time for the AGP meeting, the same car Grice raced in the early rounds of the 1987 ATCC before the VL was ready.

[Camaroz]

WD Jnr,

Contact Motor Book World (Camberwell- Vic) (03) 9813 2644 or Pits & Pieces (FTG - Vic)(03) 9752 2452 or Bevan D. Young (Nth Brighton - SA) (08) 8298 5548 for your AMYR and TGR back copies! Ya never know ya luck.

Cheers.

[racer69]

WDJ - thanks for that, i wasn't aware they built they built their own

I have read that part of Tom Walkinshaw's 1987 plans was to race Commodore's (after Austin Rover had withdrawn after 1986). Now this would have been in the planning prior to the Brock/Holden polariser bust-up. Where did his brace of, from what i remember, VK's and updated VL's come from. What happened to the Herbie Clips VL used at the Nurburgring in 1987 WTCC round (it's only appearance that year). Surely Uncle Tom wasn't going to run them privately?


Speaking of Commodore's, does anyone know the origins of a European-based Commodore used during 1987 (probably 1988 as well). It was a Brock-VL (as opposed to Walkinshaw), from memory driven at Spa by amongst others Michel Delcourt. Could have been red and white, #24??

[mixxer]

Delcourt had an association with Graham Moore from memory, maybe through him

[Gaz170]

Delcourt partnered Gricey at one of the European races in 1986. Is it possible he bought the VK at the end of the year and had it updated? I'm not aware of this particular car coming back to Australia.