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Rare Spares Top Five Bathurst 1000 Races

Motorsport in Australia, as a topic of conversation, is one that’s up there with like/dislike Ricky Gervais, should pineapple be on a pizza, is Peter Helliar actually funny, for dividing people’s opinion. Who’s the greatest driver, was the 1978 Torana the best car, which was the greatest of the great races at Bathurst?

Given the history of the yearly event that is “Bathurst”, pinning down a top five most exciting races from over fifty races is always going to be fraught with danger. We don’t expect our list to be yours. But we would love to know what you think your top five are. [More]

Touring Car Masters 2018 - Previewing the final rounds

The Australian historic racing car category, the Touring Car Masters, is definably Australia’s premium historic racing cars group. The guidelines are comparatively simple: have three driver categories and have cars of a pre-1976 era. Trackside watchers will see Chevrolet Camaros, BOSS Mustangs, and entrants from Australia’s own automotive vaults of history, the Valiant Chargers, Ford Falcon GTs, and Holden Monaros. The driver regulations cover ProMaster for professional drivers, ProAm for part time “let’s have fun” drivers, and ProSports. This is something different in allowing a car to be entered by different contestants in order to try and gain extra points for the car in a championship sense. There are some BIG names in the TCM as they’re known; Phil “Split-pin” Brock, Glenn “The Babyfaced Assassin” Seton, Andrew Miedecke, Jim Richards, Steve Johnson, and Rare Spares Ambassador John Bowe. The category itself is now in its twelfth year having being born in 2007. The 2018 season has eight rounds and is part of the Supercars overall presence. This year kicked off in Adelaide and has completed five rounds so far. There’s three more rounds to go and all three will be part of the Supercars enduros: Sandown for September 14-16, Bathurst over the weekend of October 4-7, and then the final round in Newcastle for the November 23-25 weekend. In the overall standings its John Bowe on top, having won three of the five rounds thus far. Steve Johnson is tapping on his rear bumper, with 959 points, just 18 shy of Bowe’s 977. Former V8 Ute drivers Adam Bressington and Jason Gomersall are in third and fourth, with all four in the ProMasters driver group. Fifth overall goes to Cameron Tilley, well known for his driving exploits in a Falcon GT-HO. Cam also leads the ProAm driver standings, with respected Production Touring Cars pilot Jim Pollicina leading the ProSports. Unless both Bowe and Johnson have shockers over the next three rounds, allowing Bressington, Gomersall, and Tilley a sniff of top two success, the gap they have over the third placed Bressington, currently on 837 and 97 ahead of Gomersall on 744, it’s likely either of these heroes from the DJR historic stable will claim the top step of the podium at the end of the 2018 season. Former Mustang driver Bowe has been driving a Holden Torana once owned by fellow racer Charlie O’Brien in the 2018 season, a car featuring a permanent tribute to the late Jason Richards. Johnson has taken over the wheel of the car Bowe raced and sold a couple of years ago to his good mate Tony Warner. The car is unsurprisingly known as “Mustang Sally”. Of the 2018 season so far Rare Spares ambassador John Bowe has a few words. “The cars are sensationally difficult to drive. In some cases there’s over 700 horsepower and only 15 x 8 inch wheels and tyres! No wonder they need a bit of caution.” John has stated that he feels the category’s driving standards may need some scrutiny, “These old classics are way more expensive to fix than modern cars. There’s no doubting that the TCM is popular with the spectators and TV audiences but no one enjoys seeing these cars wrecked.” John himself has been on the receiving end of some of the driving standards he feels needs scrutiny, which makes his 2018 results all the more remarkable. What’s your thoughts on the Touring Car Masters? Let us know on our Facebook page in the comment section below this article!

1992 Bathurst Re-cap

As the Supercar enduro cup is about to begin and the iconic Bathurst 1000 creeps up on us at a rapid rate, we’ve decided to produce a series of articles on some of the more memorable Bathurst’s over the years. We chose to begin with 1992 for a number of reasons, firstly it’s one of the more controversial Bathurst in the race’s history, and with the re-introduction of turbochargers in 2018 (in the form of wildcard entries) creating a bit of talk currently, we thought it would be worth checking out the last time turbo’s hit the mountain. For a bit of background in the 1992 event, Jim Richards and a young Mark Skaife had been campaigning the all-conquering Nissan GT-R throughout the 1991 and 1992 seasons with a championship a piece and Bathurst victory in 91 to boot. To say that the ‘Godzilla’ wasn’t universally loved would be an understatement. Ford and Holden fans were displeased with the GT-R’s perceive benefits, namely four-wheel drive and a power advantage. Bathurst weekend arrived and to the joy of Ford fans, Dick Johnson was able to upstage the GT-R in the top 10 shootout, putting down an incredible time in his Ford Sierra RS500 with Skaife following almost 2 seconds behind. On race day, the track was hit with severe weather (eventually resulting in 16 DNF’s), with Richards’ and Skaife’s four wheel drive GT-R benefitting from the inclement conditions. In the early stages of the race, tragedy struck. New Zealander Denny Hulme lost his life after suffering a heart attack mid-race. Hulme’s car came to a rest on Conrod straight under seemingly innocuous circumstances, before he was then transferred to Bathurst Hospital where he passed away. Racing resumed after a prolonged safety car period and as conditions worsened the majority of the field pit for wet tyres, however, the Nissan stayed out on slicks ensuring they were able to stretch their lead to a seemingly insurmountable one-lap lead. More and more cars found themselves in the wall as conditions continued to deteriorate, and eventually the stewards were left no option other than to red-flag the race. In the meantime, as Richards continued making his way around the circuit he damaged the front left wheel of the GTR, before losing traction out of forest elbow and winding up off the circuit with a score of other mangled cars. The stewards were left with the unenviable task of declaring a race winner, eventually deciding to score the race as finished on the previously completed 143rd lap, resulting in race victory to Richards and Skaife. The result didn’t sit well with Holden and Ford fans, who booed and jeered the two as they stood on the podium. Richards’ response will go down in racing folklore; “I thought Australian race fans had a lot more to go than this, this is bloody disgraceful. I’ll keep racing, but I’ll tell you what, this will remain with me for a long time. You’re a pack of arseholes.” While certainly creating a stir at the time, in hindsight it’s just one of many incredible moments that shape the history of the incredible racing spectacle that takes place at Mt Panorama each year. Stay tuned as we continue to talk Bathurst in the lead up to this year’s great race. What do you remember about the 1992 Bathurst 1000? Do you agree with the steward’s decision? Head over to the Rare Spares Facebook page and let us know in the comments section below.