HISTORIC TOURING CARS IN ACTION ONCE AGAIN
Kiwi motor racing fans still talk fondly about the ‘golden age’ of touring car racing — the Group A and Super Touring era, from 1985 to 2000
It was a time when some of the best teams and drivers in the world shipped their cars here for the Nissan Mobil 500 series at Pukekohe and the Wellington waterfront circuit and when rounds of the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) were compulsory viewing just days after they had screened in the UK.
It was an era, too, when the cars looked — on the face of it anyway — just like the ones you could buy from Holden (the VK Commodore), Ford (Sierra and Mondeo), and BMW (320 and 325i).
Advances in filming and TV production work, including the use of in-car camera footage, meant that fans could watch, spellbound, as drivers such as Peter Brock and Dick Johnson, John Cleland and Patrick Watts, and our own Paul Radisich and Craig Baird raced wheel to wheel at speeds of up to 260kph.
This summer, those same motor sport fans are able to see many of the very same cars in action at events around the country courtesy of members of New Zealand’s Historic Touring Car Association, the first round having taken place in January.
The association was set up in 2015 to promote the purchase and active use of touring cars from the various categories that were run through the 1980s and 1990s. Included in this catch-all group are the two most familiar to Kiwi fans, Group A (1985–’92) and Super Touring cars (1992–2000), as well as Group C (Australia), and NZ Touring Cars (New Zealand’s own two-litre touring category).
This season, the association is running a threeround series, with rounds at the biggest and most prestigious historic motor racing meetings on the calendar. The first was the Legends of Bathurst meeting at Hampton Downs in the northern Waikato on 12 and 13 January. The second round, the Skope Classic, at Mike Pero Motorsport Park, Ruapuna in Christchurch, is set to take place over 1–3 February, and the third at the Evolution Motorsport Classic Speedfest at Invercargill’s Teretonga Park from 15 to 17 February.
Fans can expect to see over 20 purpose-built touring cars from the 1985–2000 era, including Peter Sturgeon’s Group C BMW 635i, Brett Stevens’ Group A Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth, the World Touring Car Cup–winning Ford Mondeo super tourer of Paul Radisich, and the BMW 320i NZTC car of Steven Kelly.
Paul Radisich will be one of at least six original drivers who will participate in this season’s series. The Legends of Bathurst meeting at Hampton Downs saw seventime Bathurst winner Jim Richards drive Peter Sturgeon’s Jps-liveried Group C
BMW 635i; son Steven Richards (with Craig Lowndes, the current Bathurst title holder) drive his Nissan Primera super tourer; two-time Bathurst 1000 winner John Bowe behind the wheel of a Group A Volvo; and fellow Australian tin-top star Charlie O’brien in Peter Sturgeon’s other Group A-spec BMW, an E30-model M3.
Association spokesman Stephen Grellet says that with the interest in buying, restoring (when necessary), and race preparing these wellloved racing cars at an all-time high, the series is a timely addition to the programme at classic motor racing meetings around the county. Grellet, who owns and races an EX-BTCC Peugeot 406 2.0 super tourer, said, “It really was a fantastic era, and we are very fortunate that many of the cars that were raced in period are still available for us to buy and run in our series here.”