1983 ATCC season

Racing events, drivers, cars or anything else from the past.
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#16

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Bottom post of the previous page:

theracer120 wrote: 2 years ago IIRC the Surfers Paradise circuit was a few kilometres inland but that didn't stop it from being demolished at the end of the 80s for housing, a shame as it was the best QLD permanent track for major racing in my opinion.
Yeah, sadly a few fell to that fate. It was actually built and designed by the same guy who did AIR so incorporated a drag strip etc (probably explains the infield planes using the strip as a runway.) Some quick bits though.... the corner at the Dunlop Bridge was the fastest in Aus before the Chase was created at Bathurst.

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#17

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

I put together a post yesterday about Greg Hansford and his achievments , mentioning that his son is now doing really well in Touring Car Masters plus some bits about other privateers. Took a while to put it together cos I dug out old pics as well..... then when I went to post it the forum for some reason had logged me out and the post was lost , not saved in drafts or history, backspacing didnt find it or anything like that.... :tearful: :tearful:
I will try and put it together again but maybe after the racing today.

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#18

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

OK lost post I mentioned and promised about Greg Hansford and what a star he was, sadly lost before his time. Now rewritten!

He was renowned for being a quick learner of circuits..... back in his bike days he was noted for it. The Swedish GP was shifted to Karlskoga in 1978 and Hansford qualified fastest for the 350 GP with a better time than Johnny Cecotto posted in the 500 class. At Nürburgring in ’78, Gregg was fastest 250 and 350 qualifier, on his first ever visit to the 22km circuit.

He was the latest of the late brakers..... this from a report back in the day
"On a tight track on a fast bike, no one in the world would count on beating him. He is near unbeatable on the corners and he is the best braker in the business.”
He still remains the first (and only) Aussie to win a GP senior race in his first year.

He is still the 4th most successful Australian rider in terms of GP wins..... behind Doohan Stoner and Wayne Gardner. More remarkable is that he achieved all his motorcycle world GP success in just 3 short years.

With 10 world Championship GP wins to his name he was the second most successful rider never to win a world championship. Randy Mamola won 13 GPs and was a title runner-up four times.

His motorcycle racing career was effectively ended when at Spa on July 5, 1981 he took an escape road due to inoperative front brakes and crashed into a marshal’s car that had been parked there! Hansford sustained a broken femur and suffered blood clots that ended his two-wheel career.

He returned to Australia and the following year moved into Touring cars with Alan Moffat. He had ties with Alan going back many years..... in fact Greg was entered to race at Bathurst in a Moffat run car, sharing with Colin Bond in 1977 but a motorcycle racing crash caused injuries which saw Hansford forced to withdraw from the race. That was the year Colin Bond (with Alan Hamilton brought in to replace Greg), was part the famous Ford Formation 1-2 finish. Greg should have been part of that.

He ran a few endurance races in 1982 with Alan Moffat, but the Surfers race in 1983 was his first 'solo' appearance in the ATCC. Greg qualified 3rd behind Moffat and Brock and after missing a gear at the start and dropping to 11th at the first turn, put in a great drive to finish in 3rd place.

He celebrated his first (touring car) victory in 1984, sharing the driving with Moffat in the second round of the Australian Endurance championship at Oran Park, near Sydney.

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Of course Greg went on the win the Bathurst 1000 with Larry Perkins. Hansford made 13 Bathurst 1000 starts over the years

With Neil Crompton, he also triumphed in the 1994 Bathurst 12 Hour race driving an RX-7.

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Greg winning the Senior Australian Grand Prix on the 350 Yamaha at Bathurst in 1973.

That gave Greg the very unique honour of being the only person on the planet to win both major bike and car races at Mount Panorama. . A true Bathurst Legend.

Not quite in the Surtees league of World Championships with both bikes and cars, but quite an achievement none the less.

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Greg, racing cars at Bathurst with Nissan, takes time out to hang with his bike friends.

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He ran with DJR in a Sierra for a couple of years (pic from 1987).

Sadly Greg was taken from us when he crashed at Phillip Island, driving a Ford Mondeo in Supertouring.. He went off the track at Turn 1, into the tyre barriers, which propelled his car back onto the racing line, where a following competitor was unable to avoid the stricken Mondeo, and ran into it at over 200kph. Greg was pronounced dead at the circuit.
It was the first time in his life he had ever raced a front wheel drive car.

A very sad day. :rip: RIP Greg.


Talking of sons of, which I am about to, Greg's son Ryan is also nowadays a notable steerer inTouring Car Masters.


Ryan is very successful driving a Torana, winning many races outright. Ironically often against the also Torana mounted (nowadays) John Bowe, the person who replaced Greg at Dick Johnson Racing back in the Sierra days.

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Strangely enough, despite being from a racing family, Ryan left it late in life to start motor racing. No karts or bike racing in his youth as one might expect. Something to do when as a three and a half year old, Greg put Ryan on a small motorbike on his property.....but he ran that straight into a fence and nearly killed himself, so that sort of closed that chapter there and then. Ryan was 12 when Greg died so I guess any racing thoughts he might have had would have been put on hold at that point.

It was only a few years after his Father's death, once he had got a career and some money behind him, that Ryan developed an interest in motorsport through friends, and eventually, in his late twenties bought an old Gemini and took part in the local Gemini series with great success. That led to other things including moving up to the the Fujitsu V8SC feeder series the following year..... ISTR he ran in the original V8 utes series before moving on to TCM in. about 2017.

I know he was on pole over the weekend at SMP .

Last edited by Everso Biggyballies 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


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* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
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#19

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Another Father Son thing came to mind when @Vassago mentioned Steve Masterton in his reviews. He was one of the long standing privateers running a Falcon through the Group C era, and Masterton Homes stickers were a common sight.

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I knew his son James had started Motor Racing but whilst watching the V8's over the weekend, just after I had read the mention above of Steve Masterton, who should pop up on my TV screen but James Masterton.... sadly not in a good way, but the Masterton Homes logos on James Super 2 (maybe Super 3?) car got plenty of airtime as he ran wide at the wet SMP meeting and got bogged, needing to be rescued whilst an SC was called.

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As an aside I know a couple of years ago Steve and James bought back Steves old Group C Falcon..... when he gave racing away he sold the car to the guy who did his fabrication work. The guy never used it and it has sat in a shed being stored for the best part of 40 years. All the owner had done was get it ready for a new livery.

The last I heard was the car was being restored to its former glory (and livery!) and the engine was off being rebuilt.

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Not sure what the plans are but maybe another Falcon for the Touring Cars Masters series. Or of course the Heritage series....

I know another Masterton Homes sponsored car, the Capri that Colin Bond ran back in the day (1981?) under the Masterton Homes banner, is back racing again in the Heritage Saloons Championship. (Heritage Saloons is for genuine original period cars, not recreations, so this is the real thing.) It was quite a successful car in its day and was certainly an under 3 litre class winner many times.

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Info about Heritage Touring cars here...... http://www.heritagetouringcars.com.au/

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


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#20

Post by Vassago »

Thx for the updates! Colin Bond is one name that also gets mentioned a lot during the '83 coverage since George Fury was chasing history in becoming a dual Australian Rally/Touring Car champion as the second man in history after Bond.
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#21

Post by Vassago »

Round 7 - Oran Park

Neil Crompton was back in the TV booth for this round that featured 21 entries including a rash of previously unseen drivers - however I'm familiar with the names from other seasons. The powerful Camaros were back with Kevin Bartlett & privateer Mike Burgmann who definitely made his presence felt. There were also five Mazdas all of the sudden as Allan Moffat's title bid was supported by Gregg Hansford again as well as Peter Shiel in a white/blue RX-7, Barry Jones in a red one & Peter McLeod in a yellow/black one. Fred Gibson was back in the second Nissan turbo too.

George Fury took pole which suggested he might be competitive here come race day. Moffat joined him on the front row with Brock & Grice on row two. Shiel was impressive fifth ahead of Dick Johnson, Harrington & B. Jones.

Brock made the best start and took the lead with Moffat slotting into second. Fury was forced to battle Allan Grice and the fast-starting Barry Jones in the red Mazda for third. Dick Johnson's miserable season continued as he tagged the wall exiting Turn 6 and was done for the day. It took him three laps to limp back to the pits such was the suspension damage on the Falcon. Further back Steve Harrington suffered a puncture on lap three and had to pit which lost him over lap.

Moffat made his move for the lead a little earlier this time and passed Brock on lap 6 before building a little gap over the Holden man. Behind them Allan Grice moved into third with Fury unable to hold off Jones either and this was surprising given the championship leader's pace in practice.

Around lap 8 the ABC TV crew started listing the rules changes coming into effect since August 1st (for the endurance season). The width of rear tires was expanded to max. 15 inches (which answered Brock's demand about 12 inch tires I wrote about earlier) but Mazda was also allowed to increase it's engine capacity. Nissan wasn't so lucky as they were moved into the 3 litre class permanently and couldn't profit from the "B" class points system anymore. The Camaros were allowed to use 16 inch tires while there were some changes benefiting the BMW that was unseen in ATCC for the last two years allegedly due to performance gap yet I see Jim Richards competed in the endurance races so I presume the BMW wasn't that bad however it would be two more years until the Group C era ended and the BMW was back to ATCC on full-time basis.

Back to the race, Garry Willmington blew an engine in his yellow/green Falcon on lap 10 and parked the car just before the final corner so he couldn't quite make it back to the pits while Mike Burgmann spun around the infield while getting lapped by Allan Moffat. Two laps later the silver Camaro made a spectacular exit when Burgmann crashed in Turn 5 and ended up on his roof. There was no TV replay so I can't tell whether he lost a wheel first or the wheel was ripped off by the impact. It took 1,5 laps for Burgmann to be extracted from the car but the race continued on without anything but a local yellow flag. Who needs a safety car either? If this crash happened today that would be a mandatory red flag, lol. The crash happened on lap 17 of 32.

Of course very sadly Mike Burgmann was killed during the 1986 Bathurst 1000 but I have no idea if he had a reputation of crashing a lot. Oran Park 1983 was allegedly his ATCC debut according to the stats I could find.

With Burgmann's Camaro sitting upside down in Turn 5 for the rest of the race Allan Moffat continued to lead with Brock in second. Grice was third ca. ten seconds back and Jones was keeping Fury behind in fourth. The attrition mounted as Terry Shiel's Mazda pulled at the side of the track and Peter McLeod pulled in the pits on lap 25 while running sixth. Harrington in the second Roadways Holden was lapped for the second time and also pulled into the pits to retire. Kevin Bartlett was lapped in the closing stages and tried to make it hard for Moffat & Brock to get around him but eventually had to concede.

There wasn't much action in the closing laps and Moffat won by ca. three second ahead of Brock. Grice completed the podium with Barry Jones in fourth and taking points away from George Fury who could only manage 5th in what was his worse result of the season. Gregg Hansford came home 6th ahead of top privateer Terry Finnigan who came from the back of the grid to claim 7th. Skippy Parsons was 8th and the last car on the lead lap. Bartlett was 9th and Fred Gibson completed the top 10 after a mid-race pitstop put him out of contention for a better result.

Screenshot of Burgmann's Camaro I took. Since the missing wheel was RF I assume it came off first and actually caused the crash? Johnson tagged the very same wall on lap one.

Image

Next up: Season finale in Lakeside and probably more controversy given some of the front runners - including the championship leader Fury - withdrew from the round.
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01.05.1994 - We'll never forget...
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#22

Post by Vassago »

Round 8 - Lakeside

The track itself was a tighter version of Brands Hatch or some other old school British circuit. George Fury led the standings on 160 points with Allan Moffat on 146 meaning the latter had to finish in 5th place (worth 15 pts in the > three litre class) to win the championship. The Nissans were missing as Fury apparently said he couldn't better his worst result of the season (5th at Oran Park) to gain more points with the worst result having to be dropped. However the Roadways team decided to skip the season finale as well and ABC TV crew said Allan Grice was watching the Le Mans 24h as a spectator. They also mentioned Vern Schuppan was leading after seven hours.

15 cars entered the round with Moffat backed by Gregg Hansford in the second Mazda again. The privateer class saw David Parsons with a new car number #11, Alf Grant in the old Dick Johnson Falcon (car #71) and Barry Lawrence (#28) making his first outing of the season in a white/yellow Commodore with Bayside Spares sponsorship (this livery reminded me of the DTM Opel Calibras of the 90s). I see Lawrence made only four ATCC career starts and three of them came at Lakeside. John English in a white Falcon and John Donnelly in a red Falcon were back for the second time after Surfers Paradise so I imagine they were Queensland based drivers. The Isuzu Ginetta was also back with Lester Smerdon at the wheel. The field was rounded out by three various Mazdas (RX-7, RX-3 and 626) plus the navy blue Commodore of Peter Brierley.

Qualifying was held in wet & drying conditions for the second session. Moffat took pole ahead of Johnson with Brock and Hansford on row two. On race day the track was still wet at the start with spray coming from under the wheels until about half-distance (race distance was 35 laps). Moffat led away from the start with Brock challenging on the outside where he half-spun coming off Turn 2. He somehow managed to regain control and avoid crashing into Johnson on the inside. Brock showed supreme pace and outdragged Moffat for the lead on the S/F line as they completed the second lap. Johnson passed Moffat for 2nd soon afterwards but pulled into the pits with a power steering issue at the end of lap six. He came back for one slow lap before parking it for good. This meant the defending champion had more DNFs (4) than laps led (3) during the '83 season. Ouch.

The attrition started to mount as the wet track caught several of the privateers out. Bob Thomas spun off in Turn 5 after three laps and his Mazda RX-3 was left just outside the racing line for remainder of the race. John Donnelly spun off in Turn 1 on lap 16 while moments later John English crashed into the inside wall in Turn 5 and bounced back onto the track again. I suspect he might have tried to avoid running wide into the Thomas' Mazda but still ended up in the wall on the other side of the track. He tried to limp back to the pits but crashed on the front straight moments later again - there was probably some damage after the first impact already.

Back in the lead Brock was pulling away in comfortable fashion while Moffat eased off the pace following Johnson's retirement and was passed by Hansford after ten laps. He cruised in third thereafter with the top privateers behind him. Brock lapped him with 9 laps to go and he still lapped the second-placed Hansford on the last lap too. There wasn't much action in the second half of the race on the drying track since only nine cars were running in the end. Brock won the race by over a lap with Hansford a career-best 2nd and Moffat 3rd which clinched him the 1983 championship by six points (166 to 160). Even if Fury showed up in the season finale he would have to beat Moffat outright, something he hasn't done all season (in six races both Moffat & Fury finished, the Mazda man was always in front). The twisty nature of Lakeside would probably make Nissan more competitive but not exactly enough to beat Moffat. If Fury finished 4th in the race, he would only improve his tally to 162 points.

Barry Lawrence claimed a great 4th place in the privateer Commodore ahead of Parsons who was two laps down. Alf Grant in the old Johnson's Falcon was 6th a further lap back. The remaining runners were all lapped five times: Gary Hinton in the yellow/black Commodore, Smerdon in the Ginetta (didn't finish last, a major surprise) and Russell Worthington in a Mazda 626 was 9th and last.

Final standings: 1. Moffat 166, 2. Fury 160, 3. Brock 128, 4. Grice 90, 5. Harrington 71, 6. Johnson 70, 7. Parsons 57, 8. Hansford 56, 9. Nelson 55, 10. Carter 35, 11. Cullen 35, 12. Parmenter 34.

My random thoughts on the season:

a) Allan Moffat was a deserving champion and would have still won it even if Fury showed up at Lakeside which I stated above.

b) Peter Brock's moaning about tires had enough merit based on the fact he was usually much faster in the first half of the race and faded in the second half. I assume that was all down to tyre wear as Moffat's much lighter Mazda didn't have such issues and was usually the best car in the closing laps.

c) I read Dick Johnson blamed this miserable season on weight issues that hampered the suspension and made the Falcon struggle for pace (basically at every round regardless of track configuration). I have no idea if he wrecked the same car at the Bathurst qualifying later in the season or was that a new car alltogether. Looking ahead to 1984 I suspect he must have build a new car or the rule changes really shifted the balance of power going forward?

d) Like I mentioned in previous write-ups, Warren Cullen was the fastest Commodore privateer while Murray Carter was the fastest Falcon privateer. Both had their seasons cut short by engine failures though the Cullen entry still appeared at AIR with Ron Harrop. David Parsons was the highest classified privateer as he avoided significant engine issues and took part in seven rounds. Lawrie Nelson was the highest classified privateer in a < 3 litre car in his small but reliable Ford Capri.

That concludes my 1983 ATCC season review. I hope anyone who read this didn't feel bored enough. I'll try to watch the 1984 season next as there is enough footage available but I can't say exactly when that happens.
07.04.1968 - Flower of Scotland when will we see your like again?
01.05.1994 - We'll never forget...
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#23

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Vassago wrote: 2 years ago

That concludes my 1983 ATCC season review. I hope anyone who read this didn't feel bored enough. I'll try to watch the 1984 season next as there is enough footage available but I can't say exactly when that happens.
Just got to say here far from bored I thoroughly enjoyed the journey..... 1983 was my first year in Australia so it was all like a new toy for me. A lot of memory joggers in your comments.
Hope you enjoyed the watching.... I certainly enjoyed the reading and it inspired me to dig out other stuff.

I think re the Brock improvement second half, something we mentioned earlier in the thread was the mid year CAMS homologation tweaks for the Holdens.... One of these IIRC was bigger wheels andd tyres which would have no doubt helped with the rubber lasting better. Certainly at this last race Brock had some new found performance. And reliability which he had suffered from earlier in the year. At Bathurst later in the year he managed to lap the field in his win.... in fact he lapped 2nd place Moffat but was 3 laps clear of the Grice / Bond 3rd place Roadways car.car.

Mind you the win was controversial as it was when Brock and Perkins took over the second HDT entry after their 05 car lunched its engine in the opening few laps. Ironically the car Brock/Perkins took over was the same car Brock/Perkins had used the year before to win.... I think it was the first time the same car managed to win Bathurst in consecutive years.

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#24

Post by Vassago »

Yeah, the Lakeside gap was huge but the new rules were only set for August 1st so Brock didn't use the wider tires at Lakeside yet. It's curious because Kevin Bartlett was quoted at Oran Park that the wider tires wouldn't help the Camaros. Why the Camaros were absent in '83 save for that one round is a mystery to me. They still looked to be well on pace in 1982 in the same set of rules unless something else happened I'm unaware of. The Group C rules ended after 1984 so I'd suspect the front runners to be unchanged until that moment at least but it wasn't the case with Camaros.

The TV crew mentioned few times the BMW 635 was uncompetitive hence Jim Richards was only doing the endurance races & Australian GT championship that season. I see Richards solidered on with the BMW until the Nissan Skyline craze of the early 90s.

I get that some fans in Australia still consider Brock as having won only six Bathursts since three times he jumped into another car mid-race after his original entry run into problems. 1983 was one of those instances indeed.

I also found an article where he was asked why Australian fans don't seem to like Allan Moffat much - his answer was "Because he sounds like a liberal politician." :tongue:
07.04.1968 - Flower of Scotland when will we see your like again?
01.05.1994 - We'll never forget...
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