Group A’s Baskerville debut

It’s taken 30-plus years but the Group A touring category will nally race at Hobart’s Baskerville Raceway. The Group A and Group C machines of the Heritage Touring Car class will make their Historic Baskerville debut over September 21-23.

The southern Tassie track traditionally hosted end-of-season ‘Win eld 25s’ invitational events for Group C touring cars and stars during the 1970s and 1980s. However, the concept died after the 1984 Touring Car Cup, which also marked Group C’s last on-track hurrah. Thus, by the time international Group A rules were adopted full-time in this country for the 1985 season, the era of Baskerville’s non-championship November meetings had ended.

A big eld of mainland Heritage Touring Cars are entered for the growing Historic Baskerville event, with other Group A cars like the exMoffat/Harvey Monza WTCC round-winning Rothmans VL Commodore to feature in demonstrations.

“It is the rst time Group A cars will race at Baskerville,” con rms Baskerville Historic’s spokesperson Bruce Thomas. “There has been the odd car competing, but never a dedicated race. This year’s line-up of historically-signi cant racecars is shaping up as the best ever, with Heritage Touring Cars conducting round four of its championship over the big weekend. Between 20 and 30 cars will be making the trip across Bass Strait with the generous support of Events Tasmania, the eld representing the best assembly of touring cars to have ever raced at Baskerville Raceway.”

The aforementioned demonstrations will also include the Lola T192 F5000 that last year reset the circuit’s 35-year-old lap record, plus other Dutton Garage-owned machines including a McLaren M8F Can-Am car. It’s hoped the sessions will see the trio of John McCormack-built Sports Sedans hit the track together for the rst time. Previously, these cars – Mark Trenoweth’s Charger and Jaguar, plus Bruce Gowans’ Celica – have been static displays only.

Support races include events for Group N, sportscars and Tassie’s unique Muscle Car Cup (inset), which caters for all pre-1984 cars that do not t into typical Historic categories. The meeting is the major fundraising activity of the Baskerville Foundation which will almost clear the remaining debt from the million-dollar upgrades that have been carried out at Baskerville over the last three years.