Resurgence of the Aussie big bangers.
In the early 1990’s the Federation International Automobile’s (FIA) global touring car formula Group A was coming to an end, with spiraling costs and the failure of the World Touring Car Championship to last more then one season saw the auto-racing world to look to alternatives.
The Australian motor sport scene was dominated by domestic touring cars with the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) racing across the nation but the Bathurst 1000km endurance race being the most prestigious domestic race in the country with manufactures hoping to use the ability to survive 161 laps at Mount Panorama to prove their cars durability to the watching public. The fearsome 6.213km pubic road circuit to the south of the New South Wales town of Bathurst had two long straights that meant power was important to getting a quick lap while the top of the mountain with the fast bends and the esses downhill meant good handling was needed to survive.
The years between 1967 and 84 saw the dominance of just two brands of Ford and Holden, General motors local subsidiary, as they brought locally built high powered family cars to win on Sunday and sell on Monday
1985 saw the race adopt the F.I,A group A rules, while it did not stop the big V8s from winning it did result in the Ford hero of Dick Johnson racing a Ford Sierra, a car that was not sold in Australia.
From 1988 there was a challenger to touring cars Australian dominance as entrepreneur and winner of the first Bathurst 500 mile race (the distance before metrification) Bob Jane had built Australia’s first high-banked oval nicknamed the Thunderdome and its own AUSCAR series. Fans began to switch over as V8 Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons won on the oval while turbo charged imports of the Sierra and Nissan Skyline GTR won at Bathurst.
At the end of 1991 the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) announced a new set of touring car regulations would replace Group A in the ATCC and Bathurst and have the oval racing AUSCAR under the same rule set to increase the number of cars built to race, initially called Group 3A 5.0L Touring cars.
This is the POD as in OTL AUSCAR would remain separate and die in 2000. The other changes in TTL are that CAMS would make the new cars lap slower to make them not two far ahead of the new two litter cars that would race under the new FIA rules. They wanted to do this in OTL but Holden and Ford did not want that but in TTL they made a compromise that the V8s would be heavier and slower through the corners but faster on the straights, this resulted that on the shorter twisty tracks that made up most of the ATCC the two classes will be close but at Bathurst the two long straights the V8 would be able to be significantly faster.
Agreements had to be made between CAMS, AUSCAR (essentially Bob Jane), GM Holden, and Ford Australia. And an Initial agreement was made in February of 92
CAMS and AUSCAR agreed to the these rules about creating a racing Calender
CAMS agreed to the following conditions for the regulations of the Group 3A 5.0L touring cars.
Auscar obtained
Holden and Ford agreed to follow the following rules
In May of 1992 Bob Jane was getting concerned, he was hearing that the Group 3A cars would be much more expensive to operate then the current AUSCAR cars and was threatening to pull out of the agreement with Ford backing Jane as they also feared the cost of supporting halve a field of expensive cars.
AUSCAR was cheaper because it used a conversion kit to transform the road cars into racecars while the established Touring car teams feared losing control over building their cars and CAMS did not want to be seen as supporting one company to obtain a monopoly over the production of touring cars.
The second weekend of May (9-10) was round two of the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) AMSCAR series at Amaroo Park on the north western edge of Sydney’s Suburbs. AMSCAR a shortening of Amaroo Super CARs. This racing series was exclusively held at Sydney Amaroo Park Raceway for touring car and in the early days had better prise money and Television coverage of the national ATCC. This was when another meeting was held by the ARDC between CAMS, Bob Jane, Holden, Ford, and Mike Raymond on behalf of the Seven Network TV station.
Reports from the meeting were that Jane was going on about how AUSCAR had a cheep kit to go racing while the CAMS representative kept rebutting that they would not allow their category to be dominated by a single supplier. The ARDC was also concerned by cost as the recession had reduced field sizes for the AMSCAR races with just eight at there for Sundays races. Mike Raymond was worried that having one kit needed for car eligibility would drive the engineering teams out of touring cars as teams such as Dick Johnson Racing, Perkins Engineering, Holden Racing Team (Walkinshaw), Glen Seaton Racing, and Gibson Motorsport would leave.
A compromise was able to be reached, a selection of teams would engineer their cars or kits for conversions and then could sell them for a pre-determined price to privateer teams. To oversee the teams a body would be formed to ensure costs are kept down and no one team could gain an advantage such as what was happening in the current season with Gibson Motorsport’s Nissan Skylines GTRs being utterly dominant in 1991 and so far in 92.
The body would be jointly owned by CAMS and the race promoters such as AUSCAR and the ARDC.
For a team to enter a race they would have to sign a contract to follow the rules and limit court action, as CAMS was in a current dispute with Gibson Motorsport as Fred Gibson was suing CAMS over the current handicapping of the GTRs.
The Announcement of the agreement was meet with a range of views among the big team bosses, mostly unfavourable. Some don’t like to be told what to do or how much to sell their cars, others annoyed that they were not involved in discussions and left out. Some demanding that they should be involved in further discussions. Some of the privateers were worried about being forced to buy from the big teams. There was also talk amongst the drivers worried that promoters getting together could lead to smaller prize purse for events and restrictions on where they could race.
Two weeks later the next round of the ATCC was underway at Eastern Creek Raceway in the heart of Sydney’s western Suburbs. Rules for next years cars had to be settled immediately as some teams were already building theirs as next years cars would be eligible for this years Sandown and Bathurst enduros in September and October.
CAMS stated that any Group 3A 5.0L Touring cars built by Bathurst would be eligible for next years championship even if they did not comply the rules agreed to later but they slowed down to equalise the lap times if needed. The new class would be called the Aussie V8 5L touring class. Bob Jane did offer for them to use the AUSCAR name for the whole category but CAMS did not want to use it.
It was decided by CAMS that they needed their own Concorde Agreement as used in F1 for a decade by then.
The final Agreement was signed at that supervisory corporation was to be established called the Australian Touring Car Oversight Body (ATCOB)
ATCOB was to oversee the rules agreed to by voting from the shareholder which are..
The constructors would comprise of…
These constructors signed agreed that they would sell three cars or kits to convert cars to a legal Australian V8 touring cars each year to privateers who wanted to race them and to continue to sell them parts. The cars they raced had to be the same as the cars they sold as not to have an advantage.
The Manufactures of Holden and Ford also needed to supply all teams racing their respective cars the following...
All Teams would be free to obtain parts from wherever on this list…
Also the promoters had to provide…
The Ground was set for a system that would put Australian touring car racing to world wide attention.
The Australian motor sport scene was dominated by domestic touring cars with the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) racing across the nation but the Bathurst 1000km endurance race being the most prestigious domestic race in the country with manufactures hoping to use the ability to survive 161 laps at Mount Panorama to prove their cars durability to the watching public. The fearsome 6.213km pubic road circuit to the south of the New South Wales town of Bathurst had two long straights that meant power was important to getting a quick lap while the top of the mountain with the fast bends and the esses downhill meant good handling was needed to survive.
The years between 1967 and 84 saw the dominance of just two brands of Ford and Holden, General motors local subsidiary, as they brought locally built high powered family cars to win on Sunday and sell on Monday
1985 saw the race adopt the F.I,A group A rules, while it did not stop the big V8s from winning it did result in the Ford hero of Dick Johnson racing a Ford Sierra, a car that was not sold in Australia.
From 1988 there was a challenger to touring cars Australian dominance as entrepreneur and winner of the first Bathurst 500 mile race (the distance before metrification) Bob Jane had built Australia’s first high-banked oval nicknamed the Thunderdome and its own AUSCAR series. Fans began to switch over as V8 Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons won on the oval while turbo charged imports of the Sierra and Nissan Skyline GTR won at Bathurst.
At the end of 1991 the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) announced a new set of touring car regulations would replace Group A in the ATCC and Bathurst and have the oval racing AUSCAR under the same rule set to increase the number of cars built to race, initially called Group 3A 5.0L Touring cars.
This is the POD as in OTL AUSCAR would remain separate and die in 2000. The other changes in TTL are that CAMS would make the new cars lap slower to make them not two far ahead of the new two litter cars that would race under the new FIA rules. They wanted to do this in OTL but Holden and Ford did not want that but in TTL they made a compromise that the V8s would be heavier and slower through the corners but faster on the straights, this resulted that on the shorter twisty tracks that made up most of the ATCC the two classes will be close but at Bathurst the two long straights the V8 would be able to be significantly faster.
Agreements had to be made between CAMS, AUSCAR (essentially Bob Jane), GM Holden, and Ford Australia. And an Initial agreement was made in February of 92
CAMS and AUSCAR agreed to the these rules about creating a racing Calender
- The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) will not schedule a round before the last Saturday (weekend) in February.
- The ATCC rounds take priority between March and August excluding weekends where the Group 3A cars will support an international racing series.
- AUSCAR rounds will take priority between November and February excluding weekends where the Group 3A cars will support an international racing series.
- The ATCC calendar will be released by the First Monday of November the previous year.
- That CAMS will not schedule a ATCC round conflict with an AUSCAR round if a change of date needs to be made after the Calender announcement in November.
- No ATCC or AUSCAR rounds will be scheduled in the months of September and October to give room to the Endurance races.
- That AUSCAR will only run oval races from the 1993-94 season when they will start using the Group 3A cars.
- That AUSCAR will not schedule a conflict with the ATCC rounds announced by the First Monday of November the previous year.
CAMS agreed to the following conditions for the regulations of the Group 3A 5.0L touring cars.
- The Group 3A Touring cars regulations would be written to allow the cars to be safe on an oval speedway, with appropriate crash structures.
- Group 3A cars should be able to reach 300km/h on Conrod Straight Mount Panorama at the entrance to the Chase.
- The car must use the unibody chassis from the production car.
- Each car model will have one set of front splitter, side skirts, and rear diffuser homologated and only those homologated parts will be allowed.
- The Cars will be required to only use body panels from the production cars including doors, bonnet, wheel arches no alternate panels will be allowed unless approved by CAMS and/or AUSCAR for reasons of safety.
- The engines will be 5 Litre V8.
- The Gearboxes will be six speed H-pattern manual.
Auscar obtained
- AUSCAR can require the cars to fit non-production for reasons of safety e.g. removing the headlights to remove the danger of Glass on the track surface.
- AUSCAR has the right to ban car parts, including the wheels and tyres that do not meet safety standards required to run on high banked ovals
Holden and Ford agreed to follow the following rules
- The Manufactures must take a minimum 12 chassis off the production line and sell them to team to be transformed into race cars each financial year starting in the 1992-93 financial year.
- The Manufactures must not favour their factory teams over other teams in the supply of chassis and must make a minimum of 9 chassis available each financial year to non-factory teams.
- The manufactures must make every reasonable effort to supply parts to all the teams running their cars.
In May of 1992 Bob Jane was getting concerned, he was hearing that the Group 3A cars would be much more expensive to operate then the current AUSCAR cars and was threatening to pull out of the agreement with Ford backing Jane as they also feared the cost of supporting halve a field of expensive cars.
AUSCAR was cheaper because it used a conversion kit to transform the road cars into racecars while the established Touring car teams feared losing control over building their cars and CAMS did not want to be seen as supporting one company to obtain a monopoly over the production of touring cars.
The second weekend of May (9-10) was round two of the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) AMSCAR series at Amaroo Park on the north western edge of Sydney’s Suburbs. AMSCAR a shortening of Amaroo Super CARs. This racing series was exclusively held at Sydney Amaroo Park Raceway for touring car and in the early days had better prise money and Television coverage of the national ATCC. This was when another meeting was held by the ARDC between CAMS, Bob Jane, Holden, Ford, and Mike Raymond on behalf of the Seven Network TV station.
Reports from the meeting were that Jane was going on about how AUSCAR had a cheep kit to go racing while the CAMS representative kept rebutting that they would not allow their category to be dominated by a single supplier. The ARDC was also concerned by cost as the recession had reduced field sizes for the AMSCAR races with just eight at there for Sundays races. Mike Raymond was worried that having one kit needed for car eligibility would drive the engineering teams out of touring cars as teams such as Dick Johnson Racing, Perkins Engineering, Holden Racing Team (Walkinshaw), Glen Seaton Racing, and Gibson Motorsport would leave.
A compromise was able to be reached, a selection of teams would engineer their cars or kits for conversions and then could sell them for a pre-determined price to privateer teams. To oversee the teams a body would be formed to ensure costs are kept down and no one team could gain an advantage such as what was happening in the current season with Gibson Motorsport’s Nissan Skylines GTRs being utterly dominant in 1991 and so far in 92.
The body would be jointly owned by CAMS and the race promoters such as AUSCAR and the ARDC.
For a team to enter a race they would have to sign a contract to follow the rules and limit court action, as CAMS was in a current dispute with Gibson Motorsport as Fred Gibson was suing CAMS over the current handicapping of the GTRs.
The Announcement of the agreement was meet with a range of views among the big team bosses, mostly unfavourable. Some don’t like to be told what to do or how much to sell their cars, others annoyed that they were not involved in discussions and left out. Some demanding that they should be involved in further discussions. Some of the privateers were worried about being forced to buy from the big teams. There was also talk amongst the drivers worried that promoters getting together could lead to smaller prize purse for events and restrictions on where they could race.
Two weeks later the next round of the ATCC was underway at Eastern Creek Raceway in the heart of Sydney’s western Suburbs. Rules for next years cars had to be settled immediately as some teams were already building theirs as next years cars would be eligible for this years Sandown and Bathurst enduros in September and October.
CAMS stated that any Group 3A 5.0L Touring cars built by Bathurst would be eligible for next years championship even if they did not comply the rules agreed to later but they slowed down to equalise the lap times if needed. The new class would be called the Aussie V8 5L touring class. Bob Jane did offer for them to use the AUSCAR name for the whole category but CAMS did not want to use it.
It was decided by CAMS that they needed their own Concorde Agreement as used in F1 for a decade by then.
The final Agreement was signed at that supervisory corporation was to be established called the Australian Touring Car Oversight Body (ATCOB)
ATCOB was to oversee the rules agreed to by voting from the shareholder which are..
- CAMS at 30%.
- The race promoters as a group would have a 40% share with it be further divided based on this formula. Each promoter had two shares plus one share for each event they promote that year.
- The teams that built Australian V8 touring cars themselves to race and sell These were called the constructors, at 5%.
- Aussie V8 5L touring class privateers who bought cars from the constructors and did not have the right to build their own car at 5%.
- The teams running cars to the FIA 2.0 Litre Class II Touring Cars in the ATCC and AMSCAR at 10%.
- The Touring car driver’s representee Group (non-team owners) at 4%.
- Holden and Ford at 3% each.
The constructors would comprise of…
- Dick Johnson Racing (Ford).
- Gibson Motorsport (Holden).
- Glen Seaton Racing (Ford)
- Holden Racing Team (Walkinshaw) (Holden).
- Perkins Engineering (Holden).
These constructors signed agreed that they would sell three cars or kits to convert cars to a legal Australian V8 touring cars each year to privateers who wanted to race them and to continue to sell them parts. The cars they raced had to be the same as the cars they sold as not to have an advantage.
- The cars would be built from the chassis of either the Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon taken from the production line and needed to have the following.
- Rollcage made out of steal tubing and arranged in a way to protect and seat a driver and three passengers (one for each door) from impacts.
- A 5L V8 Limited to 7500 RPM
- A six speed H-pattern gearbox
- The suspension
- The steering system including power steering.
- The electronic control unit.
- Fuel tank that meets CAMS safety requirements.
- Fuel lines.
- Exhaust system.
- Driveline System.
The Manufactures of Holden and Ford also needed to supply all teams racing their respective cars the following...
- All the exterior panels for the from the road car.
- The Homologated side skirts, front splitter and diffuser.
- The front and rear panels without lights for the Oval Races.
- The side mirrors.
- Windows
- Lights
All Teams would be free to obtain parts from wherever on this list…
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Brake discs and pads
- Brake lines
- Pedal boxes
- Dials (rev counter, speedometer etc).
- Racing Seats with a full 5-point safety harness.
- Fire extinguisher
- Filters (air, oil, and fuel)
- Oil.
- Paint/stickers.
Also the promoters had to provide…
- All the fuel to be used for the event at a reasonable price.
- Space to work on the cars between sessions, must be flat and included in the entry fees,
- Power and Light for the work areas.
- All mandatory event sponsors stickers.
- Catering for the event and include provision for dietary needs.
The Ground was set for a system that would put Australian touring car racing to world wide attention.
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