HISTORIC TOURING CARS: PREVIEW
Many of the Legends of Bathurst, the guests of honour at Hampton Downs, will stretch their legs in the Historic Touring Cars category.
Seven-times Bathurst winner Jim Richards will drive the Peter Sturgeon Group C BMW 635i, while his son Steven Richards, who of course won this year’s Bathurst 1000 with Craig Lowndes to claim his fifth title, will drive a Nissan Primera SuperTourer.
Two-time Bathurst 1000 winner John Bowe will be behind the wheel of a Group A Volvo, and fellow Australian tin-top star Charlie O’Brien will drive Christchurch car owner Peter Sturgeon’s other Group A-spec BMW, a 2.5-litre DTM-spec E30-model M3.
Paul Radisich will drive his Ford Mondeo SuperTourer that he piloted to victory in the 1993 and 1994 Touring Car World Cup events at Monza and at Donnington.
The Historic Touring Car (NZ) Association celebrates the ‘Golden Age’ of touring car racing. The Association was set up in 2015 to promote the purchase and active use of touring cars from the various categories which were run through the 1980s and 1990s including: Group A (1985-92) and SuperTourers (1992 to 2000), as well as Group C (Australia) and NZTC (NZ’s own 2-litre Touring category).
Kiwi motor racing fans still talk fondly about that era when some of the best teams and drivers in the world shipped their cars here for rounds of the Nissan Mobil series at Pukekohe and the Wellington waterfront circuit, and rounds of the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) were compulsory TV viewing just days after they had screened in the UK.
It was a time when the cars looked – on the face of it anyway – just like the ones you could buy from Holden (the VK Commodore), Ford (Sierra & Mondeo), BMW (320 & 325i) etc.
Fans can expect to see over 20 purposebuilt Touring cars from the ’85-2000 era, including Peter Sturgeon’s Group C BMW 635i, the Group A Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 of Brett Stevens and the BMW 320i NZTC of Stephen Kelley.
With interest in buying, where necessary restoring, then race preparing these wellloved and remembered racing cars at an alltime high, Association spokesman Stephen Grellet, who owns and races an ex BTCC Peugeot 406 2.0 SuperTourer, says that the series is a timely addition to the programme at classic motor racing meetings around the country.
“It really was a fantastic era and we are very fortunate that many of the cars that were raced in the period are still available for us to buy and run in our series here.”
The Legends of Bathurst meeting at Hampton Downs is the first of three Historic Touring Car rounds in 2019, the second being the Skope Classic at Mike Pero Motorsport Park in Christchurch (February 1-3), and the Evolution Motorsport Classic Speedfest at Invercargill’s Teretonga Park (Feb 15-17).
It really was a fantastic era and we are very fortunate that many of the cars that were raced in the period are still available for us to buy and run in our series here