1983 Australian Touring Car Championship
The 1983 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title for drivers of Group C Touring Cars. The title, which was the 24th Australian Touring Car Championship, was contested over a series which began on 6 February 1983 at Calder Park Raceway and ended on 19 June at Lakeside International Raceway after eight rounds.
Season Summary
The championship was won by Allan Moffat, his fourth and final Australian Touring Car Championship and a first for Mazda, who were helping to fund Moffat's team and it was also the first ATCC win for a Japanese manufacturer. Moffat himself dominated the racing, taking four out of the eight race wins, but a beneficial points structure for smaller capacity cars allowed George Fury to push Moffat all the way to the title, despite not actually winning a race. The folly in the point system was exposed at the first round at Calder when Moffat won the race from Fury, but Fury actually led the championship by finishing second outright in a smaller capacity car. When Fury took the lead for a brief time at Calder, it was the first time that a turbo powered car had led an ATCC race.Peter Brock in his Marlboro Holden Dealer Team VH Commodore SS finished third in the championship. Brock's early season form and some uncharacteristic reliability problems saw him lagging in ninth place at the midway point in the championship after failing to finish at Calder and Symmons Plains thanks to gearbox failure both times, while finishing third at Sandown and ninth at Wanneroo after spinning out of the lead in a dice with Moffat and Fury. Brock's championship got back on track with an all-the-way win in Adelaide where he won by the length of the Commodore's bumper bar from Moffat who actually got his Mazda in front 50 metres from the flag but lost out to the grunt of the more powerful V8 Commodore. From there he finished with two seconds and a win to round out the series.
Brock's win in the final round at Lakeside was easily one of the drives of the series. In difficult, wet conditions that actually suited the smaller RX-7's rather than the heavier Commodore's and Falcon's, he lapped the entire field in the 35 laps after taking the lead on lap 2. His race almost ended coming out of the Karrasell on the first lap when the left rear tyre of his Commodore got out into the mud and pitched the car sideways, almost into the path of Gregg Hansford in the second Allan Moffat Racing Mazda RX-7. Brock recovered still in 3rd place and soon past an ailing Dick Johnson whose Falcon had suffered a power steering pump failure on the grid which would cause his early retirement as he could not steer the car properly. Brock then passed early leader Moffat on lap 2 and proceeded to run away from the field. Hansford also overtook Moffat who was wisely driving with an eye on the title, but Brock lapped the #31 Mazda through the back section of the circuit on the last lap.
Moffat, Brock and Allan Grice were the only race winners in the 1983 ATCC. Defending champion Dick Johnson battled season long with an ill-handling Ford XE Falcon and could only manage two distant 3rd placings at both Sandown and Wanneroo to finish a disappointing 6th in the championship, 94 points behind Moffat. Johnson's 351cui, 5.8L V8 Falcon had the grunt, but not the handling to be a serious contender for the crown. It was only discovered before the final round at Lakeside that the problem with the Falcon's handling had been both a lack of rear tyres as well as the front suspension of the car.
Whilst Nissan driver George Fury, helped by consistent performances, led the series going into the final round at Lakeside, Fury was essentially 5 points behind Moffat in the points system corrected for the top 7 races, therefore Fury needed to finish ahead of Moffat or Moffat finish in 6th place or worse to claim the title. As Moffat had finished well ahead of Fury in all but the one race were the Mazda broke its axle, team manager Howard Marsden decided the team would skip the round as they were not in major contention to win the title. Moffat finished the final race in 3rd position, behind Brock and teammate Gregg Hansford, claiming the 1983 ATCC 6 points ahead of Fury in second place.
Controversy also reigned throughout the series with some teams such as the MHDT and STP Roadways claiming that Moffat was foxing during the championship and not racing as fast as he could in an effort to 'hoodwink' CAMS into believing the RX-7's, which ran the 1.2 Litre 12A rotary engine in the championship, needed the larger and more powerful 1.3 Litre 13B engine in order to be competitive against the V8's at Bathurst. Ultimately CAMS approved the larger 13B engine for the RX-7's, but also granted concessions to the Commodore's and Falcons which ended up giving the bigger cars a speed advantage on the Mountain.
Controversially CAMS announced the concessions for the post-ATCC 1 August homologation during the race of Round 7 at Oran Park via the ABC's telecast of the race, with ABC commentators Will Hagon and John Smailes making the announcement mid-race. In a TV interview with Smailes immediately following his 2nd placing to Moffat, Peter Brock was informed of the new homologation's and expressed his displeasure with CAMS for announcing it on television during the race and not letting those who the decision affected know first. The fallout from CAMS decision led to both the Nissan and Roadways teams boycotting the final race of the series at Lakeside, though the official reason given by Nissan team manager Howard Marsden was that the Bluebird's needed further development for the upcoming 1983 Australian Endurance Championship which included both blue ribbon events, the Sandown 400 and the James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst.
Nissan's boycott of the last round also meant that series leader George Fury virtually forfeited his closest chance of winning an ATCC championship and becoming the only driver other than Colin Bond to win both the ATCC and the Australian Rally Championship with Fury previously having won the Rally title in both 1977 and 1980. Despite this it was generally felt that the championship went to the right driver as Moffat and his RX-7 were usually the fastest combination and the expat Canadian was regarded as the man to beat. Moffat only failed to finish once at Sandown and finished every other race on the podium, including four wins, four pole positions and five fastest laps resulting in new lap records at Sandown, Symmons Plains, Wanneroo, Surfers and Oran Park, while Fury's best were two seconds and one third at Symmons Plains. Also in each race that both Moffat and Fury finished, the Mazda finished ahead of the Nissan, making it fairly unlikely Fury would win the championship in the last round, unless Moffat suffered a breakdown or was involved in an accident, which if either occurred would've meant the Nissan would win the championship in any case, hence a rather pragmatic decision was made by the Nissan team not to compete at the last event.
One outcome from this series was that in the future turbocharged cars had their engine capacities multiplied for the purposes of class point score weightings, meaning that in the 1984 Australian Touring Car Championship, the Bluebird's would compete on an equal footing with the other outright class competitors. Despite this meaning that the Nissan would score equal points as the RX-7's, Commodore's and Falcons, Nissan team boss Howard Marsden raised no objections to the change as the 1.8 litre turbo had proven that it was able to match the speed of the outright class cars. Indeed, later in the year Fury would showcase the speed of the car, qualifying the Bluebird on the front row of the grid at Bathurst, traditionally the sole domain of the more powerful V8 powered cars.
Entrants and drivers
The following entrants and drivers competed in the 1983 Australian Touring Car Championship.| Entrant | Vehicle | No | Driver |
| Masterton Homes | Ford XE Falcon | 2 |  Steve Masterton |
| Mike Burgmann | Chevrolet Camaro Z28 | 3 | Mike Burgmann |
| Cadbury-Schweppes Racing | Holden VH Commodore SS | 3 |  Peter Janson |
| STP Roadways Racing | Holden VH Commodore SS | 4 | Steve Harrington |
| STP Roadways Racing | Holden VH Commodore SS | 6 | Allan Grice |
| Marlboro Holden Dealer Team | Holden VH Commodore SS | 05 | Peter Brock |
| Peter Brierley | Holden VH Commodore | 7 62 | Peter Brierley |
| Garry Wilmington Performance | Ford XD Falcon | 8 | Garry Wilmington |
| Andrew Harris | Ford XE Falcon | 9 | Andrew Harris |
| Soundwave Discos | Holden VH Commodore SS | 11 |  Clive Benson-Brown Garry Rogers |
| Team Toshiba | Holden VH Commodore SS | 12 | Jim Keogh |
| Bob Holden Motors | Ford Escort Mk.II | 13 | Bob Holden |
| John English | Ford XD Falcon | 14 | John English |
| Ken Hastings | Mazda RX-7 | 15 | Ken Hastings |
| John Donnelly | Ford XD Falcon | 15 | John Donnelly |
| Terry Finnigan | Holden VH Commodore SS | 15 | Terry Finnigan |
| Rusty French | Holden VH Commodore SS | 16 | Rusty French |
| Re-Car Racing | Holden VH Commodore SS | 16 | Garry Rogers |
| Palmer Tube Mills | Ford XE Falcon | 17 | Dick Johnson |
| Murray Carter | Ford XE Falcon | 18 | Murray Carter |
| Gary Hinton | Holden VH Commodore SS | 18 | Gary Hinton |
| RJ Collins | Mazda RX-7 | 19 | Les Verco |
| Ken Mathews | Holden VH Commodore SS | 19 | Ken Mathews |
| Warren Cullen Auto Salvage | Holden VH Commodore SS | 22 | Warren Cullen Ron Harrop |
| Frankie Saracino | Ford XD Falcon | 25 | Frankie Saracino |
| Everlast | Ford XD Falcon | 26 | Bill O'Brien |
| Bayside Spares | Holden VH Commodore SS | 28 | Barry Lawrence |
| Peter Stuyvesant International Racing | Mazda RX-7 | 31 | Gregg Hansford |
| Peter Stuyvesant International Racing | Mazda RX-7 | 43 |  Allan Moffat |
| Bernie Parmenter | Ford Capri Mk.III | 32 | Bernie Parmenter |
| Lester Smerdon | Isuzu Gemini | 33 | Lester Smerdon |
| Eurocars Pty. Ltd. | Mazda RX-7 | 37 | Terry Shiel |
| Bernie Stack | Holden VH Commodore SS | 38 | Bernie Stack |
| Barry Jones | Mazda RX-7 | 41 | Barry Jones |
| Ross Burbidge | Mazda RX-7 | 46 | Ross Burbidge |
| Roger Manson Holden | Isuzu Gemini PF50 | 48 | Roger Manson |
| Martin Power | Triumph Dolomite Sprint | 49 | Martin Power |
| David Parsons | Holden VH Commodore SS | 50 | David Parsons |
| Capri Components | Ford Capri Mk.III S | 51 58 | Lawrie Nelson |
| Nissan Motorsport Australia | Nissan Bluebird Turbo | 55 | George Fury |
| Nissan Motorsport Australia | Nissan Bluebird Turbo | 56 | Fred Gibson |
| Hulcraft Autos | Ford Capri Mk.III | 56 | John Craft |
| Graham Treasure | Ford XD Falcon | 57 | Graham Treasure |
| Mike Imrie | Ford XD Falcon | 57 | Mike Imrie |
| Beninca Motors | Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV | 59 | Peter Beninca |
| Petrolon Slick 50 Racing | Mazda RX-7 | 59 60 | Peter McLeod |
| Jim Faneco | Isuzu Gemini | 60 | Jim Faneco |
| Les Grose | Ford Capri Mk.III | 64 | Les Grose |
| John White | Isuzu Gemini | 65 | John White |
| Kevin Bartlett | Chevrolet Camaro Z28 | 66 | Kevin Bartlett |
| Bob Thomas | Mazda RX-3 | 66 | Bob Thomas |
| Alf Grant | Ford XD Falcon | 71 | Alf Grant |
| John Eaton | Holden VH Commodore | 72 | John Eaton |
| Graham Mein | Ford Escort Mk.II | 77 | Graham Mein |
| The Daily Planet | Toyota Celica | 88 | Craig Bradtke |
| Russell Worthington | Mazda 626 | 100 | Russell Worthington |
Race Calendar
The 1983 Australian Touring Car Championship was contested over an eight-round series across six states with one race per round.| Rd. | Race Title | Circuit | City / State | Date | Winner | Team | Report |
| 1 |  Calder Park | Calder Park Raceway | Melbourne, Victoria | 6 February | Allan Moffat | Peter Stuyvesant International Racing | |
| 2 | International Motor Show Trophy | Sandown International Raceway | Melbourne, Victoria | 20 February | Allan Grice | STP Roadways Racing | |
| 3 |  Symmons Plains | Symmons Plains Raceway | Launceston, Tasmania | 13 March | Allan Grice | STP Roadways Racing | |
| 4 |  Saab-Scania Cup | Wanneroo Park Raceway | Perth, Western Australia | 24 April | Allan Moffat | Peter Stuyvesant International Racing | |
| 5 |  Mazda 100 | Adelaide International Raceway | Adelaide, South Australia | 1 May | Peter Brock | Marlboro Holden Dealer Team | |
| 6 |  Surfers Paradise | Surfers Paradise International Raceway | Surfers Paradise, Queensland | 15 May | Allan Moffat | Peter Stuyvesant International Racing | |
| 7 |  Oran Park | Oran Park Raceway | Sydney, New South Wales | 29 May | Allan Moffat | Peter Stuyvesant International Racing | |
| 8 | Lakeside | Lakeside International Raceway | Brisbane, Queensland | 19 June | Peter Brock | Marlboro Holden Dealer Team |
Classes
Car competed in two classes,- Up to and including 3000cc
- 3001-6000cc
The "3001-6000cc class" consisted of Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Falcon, Holden Commodore and Mazda RX-7.
Points system
Championship points were awarded on a two tier system to the top twenty outright finishers in each round.| Outright Position | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| Points if Up to 3000cc | 30 | 27 | 24 | 21 | 19 | 17 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| Points if 3001-6000cc | 25 | 23 | 20 | 17 | 15 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Only the best seven round results could be counted by each driver.