Australian Stock Car Auto Racing


AUSCAR was an auto racing sanctioning body owned by Bob Jane, which ran American-style Superspeedway racing in Australia. The initial AUSCAR venue was the 1.801 km, high-banked Calder Park Thunderdome Superspeedway in Melbourne, but over time the series expanded to include the Jane owned 1/2 mile Speedway Super Bowl at the eastern end of Adelaide International Raceway which first saw AUSCAR racing in 1990, the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit, and eventually several Australian road racing circuits including Calder Park's road course and the Oran Park Raceway in Sydney where racing was held under lights on the short version of the circuit. In the early 1990s, Jane and television station Channel 7 announced plans to turn the old Granville Showground trotting track which circled the Parramatta Speedway in Sydney into a paved, banked 1/2 mile track, but this did not happen.
Three categories of racing car were developed to run on the Australian circuits:
Other categories, such as the HQs, a relatively cheap category based on the Holden HQ Kingswood powered by the 3.3L Holden red motor, were also popular at the Calder Park Thunderdome. Another category was based on the American dirt track category known as Legends, since disappeared from circuit racing. Open-wheel cars such as Formula Vee also raced on occasion at the Thunderdome as a support to the NASCAR / AUSCAR races, as did the Dirt track racing Grand Nationals for a few meetings in 1990.

AUSCAR category

AUSCAR was also the name used for the second tier racing category that raced alongside the Australian NASCAR stock car racing series, starting in 1986 and continuing until 2001. The cars were not pure space frame chassis like NASCAR, but were built on Australian Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon road car chassis. As a result, AUSCARs are right-hand-drive and race clockwise on oval tracks, compared to the left-hand-drive, anticlockwise NASCAR vehicles - the theory being that the driver is located at the furthest point possible from the outside retaining walls. AUSCARs were also restricted to running 5.0 litre Holden and Ford V8 engines, though initially the Ford XF Falcons used the 5.8L 351 Cleveland V8 engines, but subsequent Falcons would run the 5.0L V8. Commodore teams were also free to use the Group A size 4.9L Holden V8 engine, though unlike in Group A racing using the 4.9L engine did not come with an overall weight reduction for the car. As such most Holden competitors used the 5.0L engines.
The 5.0L AUSCAR engines were strictly controlled and developed around compared to the of the larger and more highly developed, 366 cubic inch engines used in NASCAR, and as a result AUSCARs were slower than their American counterparts. Like the NASCAR engines, the engines used in AUSCAR were carbureted rather than having fuel injection like the road going V8s used by Holden and Ford. AUSCARs also used a Goodyear Eagle control road tyre that was narrow unlike the slick racing tyres used in NASCAR. One thing in AUSCARs' favour was that they only weighed in at compared to the NASCAR stock cars. Although they weighed less, as a result of using smaller, less powerful engines and the road tyre, AUSCARs were generally around, or around four seconds per lap, slower than the NASCAR stock cars around the Thunderdome.
Tony Kavich won the first ever AUSCAR championship in 1988. However, in a shock to the male dominated motor racing establishment, the first ever AUSCAR race at the Thunderdome, the aptly named AUSCAR 200, was won by 18-year-old Melbourne based female driver Terri Sawyer driving a Holden VK Commodore. Sawyer had qualified her Commodore on the front row of the grid and ran at or near the front all day to win from Kim Jane, Max de Jersey, Phil Brock and Graham Smith. The top five positions all going to those driving either a VK or VL Commodore. Greg East, also driving a VK Commodore, sat on pole for the AUSCAR 200 with a time of 33.2 seconds for an average speed of 121.34 mp/h.
While Sawyer would remain very competitive in the early years of the category, the early days were dominated by Jim Richards. Though it was Albury panel shop owner and Group E / Group A driver Brad Jones who would come to dominate the category, winning five consecutive titles during the peak of the series popularity, all in various model Commodores. Other notable drivers include: Greg East, Steve Harrington, Mark Seaton, Marshall J. Brewer, Gregg Hansford, Terry Wyhoon, Garry Rogers, Russell Ingall, John Faulkner, Steven Richards, Tony Kavich, Adam Pay, Nathan Pretty and his sister Nicole, Jason Whylie, Eddie Abelnecia and Leigh Watkins who was the only driver to win the championship driving a Falcon. Even Australian touring car legend Peter Brock briefly tried AUSCAR in 1988 driving an XF Falcon. Brock qualified 3rd for his first race, the 1988 Goodyear AUSCAR 200 and actually led for a number of laps until a split radiator saw him spin into retirement. To his credit, Brock later admitted that he wasn't comfortable racing on the high speed ovals and his time in the category only lasted a couple of meetings. He did return however for his testimonial race meeting held on the Calder Park short circuit in 1995 driving a VR Commodore.
Due to the returning popularity of the Australian Touring Car Championship, relaunched as V8 Supercars in 1997, as well as financial difficulties and other problems such as Bob Jane's long-running "feud" with the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, which saw CAMS ban its members from competing in the series, robbing it of a number of leading drivers, AUSCAR was quietly shut down and the drivers dispersed into other national racing series.

Champions