4 replies to this topic

[Graham Clayton]

I was perusing the discontinued championships page of the MotorSport New website:

http://www.motorspor...-championships/

and noticed the results for the NZ National Touring Car Series:


1987 Glen McIntyre/Charlie O’Brien (BMW)
1986 Graeme Bowkett (Holden Commodore)
1985 Kent Baigent (BMW)
1984 Gary Sprague (Ford Fairmont)

Doing a little digging, I discovered that Sprague's car was an XD Ford Falcon Fairmont

According to the website, the series was run to FIA Group A regulations, but I am confused as to how the Fairmont was eligible under Group A rules. Did the NZ series allow Australian Group C cars that were modified to meet FIA Group A rules?

Would anyone be able to post a list of competitors for the 1984 series, and what cars they drove?

[Catalina Park]

I think the series allowed the NZ touring cars form the previous season to race with the Group A cars. They were not as modified as the Australian Group C cars.

[Kevan]

The Anderson Bros. 'Pinepac' Ford Falcon (or Fairmont- I forget which- it's on the right of this pic with the Anderson team's pair of Group A Mustangs
http://www.nzmustang...inepac cars.jpg ) certainly ran against the Group A cars in the Nissan-Mobil 500 races at the beginning of '85 (shared with Dick Johnson) , so I'm guessing there was some means of fitting cars raced in previous season into Group A as Catalina Park suggested?


http://homepage.mac......TC Races.html

[SteveHolmes]

I was perusing the discontinued championships page of the MotorSport New website:

http://www.motorspor...-championships/

and noticed the results for the NZ National Touring Car Series:


1987 Glen McIntyre/Charlie O’Brien (BMW)
1986 Graeme Bowkett (Holden Commodore)
1985 Kent Baigent (BMW)
1984 Gary Sprague (Ford Fairmont)

Doing a little digging, I discovered that Sprague's car was an XD Ford Falcon Fairmont

According to the website, the series was run to FIA Group A regulations, but I am confused as to how the Fairmont was eligible under Group A rules. Did the NZ series allow Australian Group C cars that were modified to meet FIA Group A rules?

Would anyone be able to post a list of competitors for the 1984 series, and what cars they drove?

I don't think there was anything to stop any car being eligible for Group A if built in the required numbers within a 12 month period. Its just that Ford Australia wasn't interested in homologating the required bits to make the XE Falcon a good Group A race car, so Australian teams went with the Mustang package instead. But there were a couple of teams in NZ who raced the XD/XE Falcon in the first season of Group A in NZ, including the Anderson brothers and Robbie Francevic. The Andersons stuck with theirs a little longer than Francevic who soon moved to a Mark Petch Volvo, but Dick Johnson drove the Anderson XE at the Wellington street race in 1985 and put the car on pole ahead of some quality machines including Brocks new Group A Commodore, Tom Walkinshaws ETCC Rover, plus a couple of BMW 635s etc. But the Falcons had diff or axle problems from memory and the Andersons soon switched to a Mustang.

There are a couple of photos of the Anderson and Francevic Group A Falcons on this page:

http://www.theroarin...m-my-past/page3

And this one:

http://www.theroarin...m-my-past/page4

[Lee Nicolle]

The 351 XD XE were applicable for GpA. The homolgation was done in NZ. The cars were fast and quite fragile in the transmission.
Since I am playing with one of these things these days the fixes were probably advailable. The single rail box is fragile but has good ratios so would be viable if treated gently. But the 25 spline B/W diff is probably good for about 5km!. If they made a 28 spline spool and used 9" axles they would have had something useable, though still fragile. The EB on diff is little more than that and is fairly tough, they raced production cars quite suyccesfully with them in the 90s and throughto TE50 AUs.
In other words so near but so far,Isnt hindsight wonderfull. I feel they would have been quite quick on open fast circuits. Until all the hairdryer stuff turned up anyway.