37 replies to this topic

[ghinzani]

Have we had a topic about these cars? I could'nt find one but if we have feel free to delete this one. However I am interested in this series about which I know virtually nothing. All I know is there was a Group C like car called a Kaditcha driven by Bap Romano that was around from at least 82/83, and that it and some other cars ran in the Sandown WEC race at the end of 84. Some of these cars though were'nt Group C like but more like DTM cars, but I believe there were other sportscars a la the Kaditcha. Can anyone enlighten me as to when the series ran, what the regs were and perhaps what were some of the cars? It seemes like a mix of what we would have called at the time Thundersaloons and Thundersports.

[Lee Nicolle]

Have we had a topic about these cars? I could'nt find one but if we have feel free to delete this one. However I am interested in this series about which I know virtually nothing. All I know is there was a Group C like car called a Kaditcha driven by Bap Romano that was around from at least 82/83, and that it and some other cars ran in the Sandown WEC race at the end of 84. Some of these cars though were'nt Group C like but more like DTM cars, but I believe there were other sportscars a la the Kaditcha. Can anyone enlighten me as to when the series ran, what the regs were and perhaps what were some of the cars? It seemes like a mix of what we would have called at the time Thundersaloons and Thundersports.

It was 84, they strangled the Sandown circuit to make extra length. Not really remembering the categorys but the entry was the Silk Cut Jags,Rothmans Porsches etc. the regular world Championship cars.
The aussie entry included Bap Romanos Kaditcha which was a similar car with a Cosworth V8 in it. The Veskanda, a local car built to international rules with a 6 litre Chev, A JWS which I think was rotary powered and a couple of other half decent local cars plus the IMSA style Chev Monza which was built by the Bob Jane team and I think was raced by Bryan Thompson and Co?
It was a somewhat boring race, had few spectators and it sent the promoters, The Light Car Club broke.
I am sure there is other people on here who know, remember and care more!

[Kevan]

It was 84, they strangled the Sandown circuit to make extra length. Not really remembering the categorys but the entry was the Silk Cut Jags,Rothmans Porsches etc. the regular world Championship cars.
The aussie entry included Bap Romanos Kaditcha which was a similar car with a Cosworth V8 in it. The Veskanda, a local car built to international rules with a 6 litre Chev, A JWS which I think was rotary powered and a couple of other half decent local cars plus the IMSA style Chev Monza which was built by the Bob Jane team and I think was raced by Bryan Thompson and Co?
It was a somewhat boring race, had few spectators and it sent the promoters, The Light Car Club broke.
I am sure there is other people on here who know, remember and care more!

The World Championship visited Australia twice- Sandown in '84: Rothmans Porsche and regular World Championship privateers- Lancia missed the trip, no Jags, (they didn't appear until '85)- and a variety of local cars entered in a catch-all 'Australian Cars' category, including Romano's Kaditcha- (aparently entered here as a 'Romano'), a JPS Team BMW 320, Jeff Harris's JWS-Mazda, Grice's Chevy Monza, and Bryan Thompson's Chevy turbo-powered Mercedes SLC etc.

Second appearance was in '88; Jag v Merc, with the Veskanda the only local entry: http://www.racingspo...8-11-20-026.jpg The Veskanda seems to have been entered as Group C car, rather than in any category for 'local' cars suggesting, as you said that it was built to the international regs

[ghinzani]

Thanks chaps, Ive heard about some of that before. How about the history of the class in Oz itself? I guess there was a national championship? What was the makeup of the grids? I know ive seen in recent years highly modified sedans like Alfa GTVs with Chevys etc - are these similar to the Group A predecessors?

[Lee Nicolle]

Thanks chaps, Ive heard about some of that before. How about the history of the class in Oz itself? I guess there was a national championship? What was the makeup of the grids? I know ive seen in recent years highly modified sedans like Alfa GTVs with Chevys etc - are these similar to the Group A predecessors?

The Alfa Chev etc are Sports Sedans, similar to UK Thundersports I think.The basic rules are production based cars sold in Australia. Body shell is roof, a b c pillars and sills original with the rest being able to be made from alternative materials. Engine must remain in whichever end of the car it came out with egthe engine can have the flywheel in the centre of the wheelbase but must be in the front. 12" wide rims. engine has 6 litre maximum with equivilancys for forced aspiration.
The best cars use transaxles with fully fabricated suspensions, though a good fairly standard type car is not that far off the pace.
Early this decade they introduced weight limits which really made the class less attractive. A 5-6 litre car must be 1125 kilo with driver which made a lot of cars too light and when adding ballast made them less competitive and too fragile. [Including my own]The class is still going though but some of the cars these days are Transam cars from NZ [or the states] to make up the numbers.
The big sporties are a vanished breed, there is none racing to my knowledge except in historic racing!Sports car racing , what there is of it is at club level only.
Far too many sedan based classes, which is a pity.
And yes I do like sedans but there is about 5 classes too many!

[ghinzani]

Ok thanks, so they didnt race with the Group A sportscars then? How many cars were on the grid with the sportscars then? Did they allow in old European Group 6 and Group 5 cars? I understand Frank Gardener had an old mid 70s German Gruppe 5 BMW for the first Sandown race? Was this atypical?

[thunder427]

Lee,how right you are/were,absolutely BOOOOOOORRRRRRRIIIING, those who re-designed the track should have been taken somewhere quite, given a sword each and made to fall on it, Including our World Champion (not sure how much 'say'he had but for a "Dollar'I'm sure he would have agree to anything)........Sandown cnr had to be the best ,high speed cnr in Australia,so why did they not go to the 'Bottom' of the cnr and double back to wards the horse race track,After 'Le Mans' hype it was just terrible from the spectator point of view and Sandown had suddenly got very 'OFFICIAL' about every thing...can't go there,can't park there ,can't, etc, etc, "Its an international (Please note small i)event", a total 'wank factor',for the, LIGHT CAR CLUB, bunch of bloody crevat wearer's.................sorry!!, Australia has had some great race's...this WAS not one of them................regards427

[Ray Bell]

First, you should eliminate from your thoughts anything about 'series'...

While there was a National Series for a championship sometimes, other years the National title went to the winner of a single race.

For the most part, Group A cars ran in individual races at race meetings where they were bit players in support of other major events.

For years the National title was the Australian Tourist Trophy, while sometimes some states had their own local Tourist Trophy (for instance, the Queensland Tourist Trophy). But these races weren't restricted to Group A cars.

As they were for 'sports cars', any form of sports car was eligible. There were even times when National Championship series events had sedans with, for instance, the rear seat removed, to make them into 'sports cars'.

The makeup of a typical Group A race would have maybe 50% of the field being real sports racing cars like Elfin 400s, 300s, Lotus 23s and various Specials... maybe a car like the Nola Holden or the Gissing Holden, which were front engined cars with Holden 6s. The next 35% of the field would be Clubman cars, which strictly speaking weren't Group A because they had no doors, while the remainder would be Production Sports Cars... Sprites, Lotus Elans etc running for the fun of being in another race.

[racer69]

Further to what Ray has written, During the late 70s and early 80s the Australian Sportscar Championship was run for production sports cars (think 911's, Rusty French ran a Pantera), in 1982 they changed the rules to these Group A Sportscars. Kaditcha's of different shapes were the cars at the front, driven by the likes of Chris Clearihan, Peter Hopwood & obviously Bap Romano... but the fields were pretty light on.

In 1985 the fields ran with the GT/Sports Sedan class, and in following years Sports Sedans in some cases made up the bulk of the grids, whilst also having their own seperate races on the program. By then though the Veskanda of John Bowe was the car to beat, with Terry Hook's Lola in there as well.

Does anyone have any pics?

[Wirra]

I've probably got some photos around '68-'72 but can somebody translate the request into Strine. What's this about, big banger sports cars or sports sedans? What is the colloquialism for Group A?

[cuffybert]

G'day, I have a car that I am slowly rebuilding that was a Group A sports car. It started life as a Bugeye Sprite and was raced I assume as a prod.sports car. It had a big front end smash and was then fitted with a custom made fibreglass front and a space frame chassis in the front section and fitted with a Holden grey motor with triple SU's. The front suspension, discs and hubs are Ford Cortina and the rear has coil over shocks and Ford rear brakes. The doors were cut in half horizontally and welded in place then fitted with aluminium top sections that folded out on piano hinges. I believe the regs. of the day stipulated you had to have two opening doors of so many square inches and thats how the owner got around that one. A bit later in its life it had a rear end shunt so the body work was cut off at the rear of the rear wheel arch giving it a flat Kham tail to which was attached a small Gurney flap. When I was stripping paint from the front spoiler I found the letters GASA. My first thought was Gas A, this must have been a drag car at sometime but then someone told me it was Group A Sports Association. The car is purple lower half and silver on top. I've also found traces of green and yellow.
The car was brought to Brisbane from Victoria in the early 1990's by the late Carl Stecher. Carl said the car raced in the late sixties and early seventies but it came with no log books or documentation. I took on the project and with Carl's help started to make some progress. Carl was the CAMS historic eligibility officer for Qld. and had many good contacts but since his passing the steam has somewhat run out of the project and I have been too busy racing other cars. This is the first time I've seen a thread mentioning Group A sports cars so if any one has any photos from the late sixties - early seventies that they can post I would be most interested.

[2Bob]

Lots on the Autopics site

http://www.autopics.com.au

specifically

http://www.autopics....0.html?cache=no

Basically if it is from the late 60s through 70s and not obviously a production sports car or a clubman then it should be a Group A sports car (Ray Bell may clarify that a bit more).

Edited by 2Bob, 29 June 2009 - 07:20.

[Lee Nicolle]

I've probably got some photos around '68-'72 but can somebody translate the request into Strine. What's this about, big banger sports cars or sports sedans? What is the colloquialism for Group A?

The top car is a big sporty, early 70s? and the Monaro and Monza are Sports Sedans. Pete geoghan in the Monaro and Alan moffat in the Monza, mid 70s at a guess

[cuffybert]

Lots on the Autopics site

http://www.autopics.com.au

specifically

http://www.autopics....0.html?cache=no

Basically if it is from the late 60s through 70s and not obviously a production sports car or a clubman then it should be a Group A sports car (Ray Bell may clarify that a bit more).

G'day 2Bob, I've had a good look through Autopics and no joy. I must dig out my old photos of the car when it came to Brisbane scan them onto my computer and post them.
Many thanks for your quick reply.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Wirra
.....What's this about, big banger sports cars or sports sedans? What is the colloquialism for Group A?

That's Niel Allen in one of the first (maybe his first?) outings in the 'Traco Olds'...

Yes, that's a Group A car, but those days we knew them better as 'Sports Racing' cars.

Clubmans were considered to be eligible to be Group A cars, and it was so noted in the CAMS Manual, even though they didn't have doors and didn't necessarily have the required footroom for the passenger as stipulated in the Group A regulations.

[2Bob]

G'day 2Bob, I've had a good look through Autopics and no joy. I must dig out my old photos of the car when it came to Brisbane scan them onto my computer and post them.

Hi Cuffybert, looking forward to the photos.

There was a similar (if not the same car) raced here (South Australia) in late 1960s but with an MGB motor. Racking my brain for the first driver's name (Paul Wilkie maybe ??), but later owned and raced by Reg O'Malley who took it to Melbourne when he moved there. Possibly sold there before, or when, he moved back to Adelaide. If you want to get in touch with Reg, wife Jaquie or son Rod, then anyone on the committee of the MG car club of South Australia would be able to give you a phone number I would think.

There was also a VERY quick similar one with a (turboed?) rotary Mazda engine raced here for a number of years but haven't seen that for several years now. Had LOTS of power very wide wheels and of course short wheel base which made it a real hand full!

Good luck

[Lee Nicolle]

Hi Cuffybert, looking forward to the photos.

There was a similar (if not the same car) raced here (South Australia) in late 1960s but with an MGB motor. Racking my brain for the first driver's name (Paul Wilkie maybe ??), but later owned and raced by Reg O'Malley who took it to Melbourne when he moved there. Possibly sold there before, or when, he moved back to Adelaide. If you want to get in touch with Reg, wife Jaquie or son Rod, then anyone on the committee of the MG car club of South Australia would be able to give you a phone number I would think.

There was also a VERY quick similar one with a (turboed?) rotary Mazda engine raced here for a number of years but haven't seen that for several years now. Had LOTS of power very wide wheels and of course short wheel base which made it a real hand full!

Good luck

Bob, was that Peter Whitbreads car? It had a normally aspirated very noisy 13B rotary, I cannot remember what chassis it was. It was originally a 4 cyl car.

[Ken Herd]

Bob, was that Peter Whitbreads car? It had a normally aspirated very noisy 13B rotary, I cannot remember what chassis it was. It was originally a 4 cyl car.

Lee,

Was that the first IDS Ian Davis built?

[Lee Nicolle]

Ken, yes I think so. I could not remember when I asked that question.I do not know where the car is now. I think that Peter sold it on.

[SR781]

My car when new at Amaroo Park

[Ray Bell]

I remember that day...

And what was the Victorian driver's name in that blue thing, No 49?

[Bondy]

I remember that day...

And what was the Victorian driver's name in that blue thing, No 49?

Would it be Dennis Burdon in the Redwing? or is it Ken Walters in the Gissing? i vaguely recall it may have been rebodied.....

Edited by Bondy, 11 July 2009 - 12:35.

[Ray Bell]

Ken Walters... big bloke, red hair...

And yes, it was rebodied by him. And it looks like the front guard of the Roberts S2 just caught in frame.

[SR781]

Ken Walters... big bloke, red hair...

And yes, it was rebodied by him. And it looks like the front guard of the Roberts S2 just caught in frame.

When i purchased the Kaditcha the original body had been damaged and the new body was based on the Roberts car. But before i purchased the car i had already obtained the original Cosworth Chev Vega engine and the original body mould that Rob Hinrichs and his brother had made.

[SR781]

This was at Amaroo Park and later at another meeting at the same circuit Graham McClintock used the car as a buffer to stop him hitting the wall at the Stop Go Corner in his Clubman . There was a photo in Racing Car News of Graham about to hit the side of the Kaditcha SR781.

Edited by SR781, 14 July 2009 - 07:17.

[ran]

Super interested in these old cars. We currently have a JWS Chev that we are slowly restoring. I have a 2lt Dungey Lancia, and my younger brother has a Norax. A close friend of the family has a Kaditcha also, but thats a way off being re built. I am after all info, pics i can find on these cars, and the ones that raced in the series from 82-88

I am trying to build interest in both the old cars, and the new, with hope of getting them running together again.

cheers

[ran]

Norax and Lancia


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

JWS body (tub in back ground)



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Kaditcha



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Ray Bell]

Series? What series?

A lot of races were run that weren't part of any sort of series.

[ran]

The Australian Sports Car Championship From 1982 to 1988

Ray, any info would be great. Did one off races happen?

Edited by ran, 18 June 2010 - 22:10.

[john medley]

ran, have you talked to John Wright at Gosford Nuts Bolts and Bearings(he built the JWSs)?

[ran]

John, i intend to. My dad owns the car, and i am just now starting to research it properly. I will get in contact with John Wright soon. We are in the process of sourcing parts, as we are doing a complete rebuild. I remember seeing it race back when i was a kid, as the old man was either racing in prod sports or sportscar series in Victoria, and at times national.

[Lee Nicolle]

Super interested in these old cars. We currently have a JWS Chev that we are slowly restoring. I have a 2lt Dungey Lancia, and my younger brother has a Norax. A close friend of the family has a Kaditcha also, but thats a way off being re built. I am after all info, pics i can find on these cars, and the ones that raced in the series from 82-88

I am trying to build interest in both the old cars, and the new, with hope of getting them running together again.

cheers

Which Norax originally? Lance ridgeway or Ivy Davis?

[ran]

Lance's car

[ran]

i know this next post is not historic as such but.. we may have a grid in December at Winton, but we need cars, i need to show we can form a grid. So if you think you might want to run please email me or post here. Its the weekend of 4th and 5th. As it will be the only race for 2010 i have decided it will be our club championship. How great would it be to end the year racing your car, and if we get a good showing it will help our cause of getting a state series up.

Basically we are pushing to get a new prototype series running....

More details to come.....




December Sports Prototype Club Championship Entrants: so far..

Michael Gibson.....4.8lt..............11........................Saker Sprint
George Vidovic.....5.0lt..............99........................Python
R Maclurkin..........2Lt............... 5.........................Lancia Dungey
Adam proctor........1lt................98........................Ralt lincspeed
Jonathon Stoeckel..1lt.............. 53........................West WR1000

for the series so far we have a mix of old and new....
Entrants:..........Capacity......Preferred race No.......Car

Up to 1.6lt class
Adam proctor........1lt................98........................Ralt lincspeed
Jonathon Stoeckel..1lt.............. 53........................West WR1000

1.6-3lt class
R Maclurkin..........2Lt............... 5.........................Lancia Dungey
Russ Butler...........2lt............... 77........................Arrow Raptor

Over 3lt class
John Steiner.........4.8lt.........................................Joest Porsche LMP Replica
Ashley Maclurkin...3.2lt.............23........................Norax
Locky F................3.2lt.............18.........................Norax Replica
Michael Gibson.....4.8lt..............11........................Saker Sprint
George Vidovic.....5.0lt..............99........................Python

Rumours (ill move these up as they are confirmed)

Speads from victoria
Cobra Daytona
Saker from NSW
3 Wests
GT40 replica

[cavvy]

i know this next post is not historic as such but.. we may have a grid in December at Winton, but we need cars, i need to show we can form a grid. So if you think you might want to run please email me or post here. Its the weekend of 4th and 5th. As it will be the only race for 2010 i have decided it will be our club championship. How great would it be to end the year racing your car, and if we get a good showing it will help our cause of getting a state series up.

Basically we are pushing to get a new prototype series running....

More details to come.....




December Sports Prototype Club Championship Entrants: so far..

Michael Gibson.....4.8lt..............11........................Saker Sprint
George Vidovic.....5.0lt..............99........................Python
R Maclurkin..........2Lt............... 5.........................Lancia Dungey
Adam proctor........1lt................98........................Ralt lincspeed
Jonathon Stoeckel..1lt.............. 53........................West WR1000

for the series so far we have a mix of old and new....
Entrants:..........Capacity......Preferred race No.......Car

Up to 1.6lt class
Adam proctor........1lt................98........................Ralt lincspeed
Jonathon Stoeckel..1lt.............. 53........................West WR1000

1.6-3lt class
R Maclurkin..........2Lt............... 5.........................Lancia Dungey
Russ Butler...........2lt............... 77........................Arrow Raptor

Over 3lt class
John Steiner.........4.8lt.........................................Joest Porsche LMP Replica
Ashley Maclurkin...3.2lt.............23........................Norax
Locky F................3.2lt.............18.........................Norax Replica
Michael Gibson.....4.8lt..............11........................Saker Sprint
George Vidovic.....5.0lt..............99........................Python

Rumours (ill move these up as they are confirmed)

Speads from victoria
Cobra Daytona
Saker from NSW
3 Wests
GT40 replica

Check out whats running over West, the Rex Meechin car is over capacity for the NSW group who put together sporties @ Clipsal.

http://farm5.static...._8ec2039d1c.jpg

Check out http://www.speedwest.net/contact.html

Edited by cavvy, 15 July 2010 - 02:54.

[ran]

[Falcadore]

Does that make three or four ambitious Sports Car series running across the country? Last year's grumblings which finally might have seen a national series for Sports Cars has exploded into fragments, much more's the pity.

[Ray Bell]

Was it ever thus?

From the seventies onwards, sports cars have had no support from the CAMS or anyone in authority.