WI CAMS harmonised with FIA?

In the early 60s the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) had a couple of good ideas, the Tasman Series for 2.5 litre open wheelers and Group A for big bore sports cars. This was ahead of the world produced some good results, 1.5 litre F1 teams would bore their engines out and come here to race at much higher speeds than Europe and the locals would race with the world's best. The Tasman Series apparently was one catalyst for the 'return to power' 3 litre F1 for 1966 and Brabham's 2.5l Tasman V8 was the stepping stone for his 3 litre world championships in 1966-67. The Group A sports cars fostered the development of Australia's first big bore sports cars and led Frank Matich to race in the USRRC and Can Am in 1967 and sell one of his cars to an American who raced it further in the US.

But by 1966 things got a bit fucked up, the FIA announced that F1 would be 3 litres from 1966 and sports car groups up to Group 7 unlimited cars. CAMS kept their old 2.5 litre formula for Tasman and introduced a 5 litre limit for Group A sports cars, so Australian cars became orphans by 1968-69 and dropped off the world stage.

WI CAMS had kept in step with the FIA, could Australian cars have remained on the world stage for a bit longer? Could a new generation of cars be built and could be have continued to attract overseas cars and drivers down here to lift our standard of racing? Would the public switch their allegiance to touring cars if we were getting big overseas names and cars racing in our series?

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Check out the spare wheel required by CAMS regulations on this SR4, 5 litre, quad cam V8 with 625-640bhp. Who the fuck is going to change a wheel on a Can Am car during a race?
 
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