1984 Australian and New Zealand (Group A) Touring Car Races – Discussion & Results

[Jesper OH]

As ever I want to cover the FIA Group A era through time and place, and now seems to be ripe for digging into the wast realms of anticipated knowledge about the Australian scene – and hopefully the New Zealand counterpart too, as there seems to be some exchange of teams, cars and drivers in the region. This will cover the period of late 1984 to 1992, perhaps with extensions in both ends if anything relevant pops up. What I like to dig into will be the following championships and races:
Australian Touring Car Championship
Australian Endurance Championship
AMSCAR
Adelaide GP support race
Bathurst 1000 (whenever it wasn't part of any series)
Wanneroo/Barbagello seems to have held Group A races during at least part of the period. Did any other tracks held similar low-key affairs – I know of an early 1987 Oran Park Castrol Clash for Cash race.
Australian 2.0 litre Group A (1985 or 1986?-1987)
for New Zealand I know of:
Nissan Mobil 500 series
Benson & Hedges series = New Zealand national Group A championship?
..and probably more. Autosport have a few short reports of Group A races supporting the 1990 Fatlantic series during January/February.
..finally, all races with a specific Group A class included.

My sources of knowledge for the period are various Autosport race reports and results (usually top 10 with fastest lap), Duke DVDs of ”The Great Race”, various editions of Bathurst 1000 yearbooks and a batch of mid/late 1980s Australian Motor Racing Year beginning with the 1985/86 edition, taped-from-Super Sport-VHS-no-longer-available-at-ease video recordings with hand written notes from the 1987 season ..bar Sandown! Most of this and more are available at YouTube. Add to that various internet sites:
http://www.autopics.com.au/default.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austral...r_Championship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathurst_1000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandown_500
http://www.groupc.org.au/
This site used to have period pictures of both Group C and A racing, but seems to have split up since. Then there are the chassis histories here on 10-tenths. In general:
Where are they now: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67601
And more specific..
Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV6 2.5: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105830
BMW 635CSi: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84884
BMW M3: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98701
Ford Mustang 5.0 GT: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65100
Ford Sierra XR4Ti: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84574
Ford Sierra RS Cosworth/RS500 Cosworth: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103035
Holden Commodore, VKs & VLs: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97759
Jaguar XJ-S: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...highlight=xj-s
Mitsubishi Colt Starion Turbo: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103887
Rover 3500 V8 Vitesse: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81326
Toyota Corolla, AE86, AE82 and AE92s: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88687
Volkswagen products: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=114314
Volvo 240 Turbo: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105300

Deliberately I have choosen to bypass the Group C era (1973-1984) to concentrate fully on the following Group A period as this is were my heart are. The time and effort to do Group As justice seems quite daunting right now, but in time I hope to return to the latter years of Group C if I'm not beaten to the task!

This Friday teaser are for you, while I'll prepare the 1984 Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 races and apparently a few other races from that year. Finally, should the Kiwi races be included or have a separate thread?

Jesper