Wow, brilliant photos there Lindsay. The Yellow Pages Walkinshaw Commodore was Peter McLeod. Great looking car it was too, though suffered with issues throughout the event.
Wow, brilliant photos there Lindsay. The Yellow Pages Walkinshaw Commodore was Peter McLeod. Great looking car it was too, though suffered with issues throughout the event.
Don't remember him.Where was he from Steve?Originally Posted by Steve Holmes
New South Wales I think Lindsay. He raced in Group C for several years, best known for racing a very successful Mazda RX7 sponsored by Slick-50. Great looking car, as all his cars were. It was yellow and black. He ran a Commodore in the early years of Group A from 1985, and was drafted into the Holden Dealer Team at last moment in 1987 to drive the teams second car, #10, alongside Jon Crooke, which Peter Brock and David Parsons jumped into when the 05 car broke early. The #10 HDT car was later declared the race winner after finishing third on the road when the Eggenberger RS500s were disqualified.
He ran this Walkinshaw Commodore for a short time, but then stopped racing.
I had forgotten about Brockie jumping in the second car in 87.I remember him and Larry Perkins doing it in 84 in the John Harvey car but then I always liked the group C cars more.
David Oxton's Sierra At Wigram .Wasn't this the car that Paul Radisich raced and won the championship with in England?
Trevor Crowes BMW.I think Jim Richards and Tony Longhurst came 4th at Bathurst in this car in 85
I love that car, and in those colours. Looks fantastic! Lindsay it was Andy Rouse who raced this car in the BTCC in 1985 and won the championship before it made its way to NZ. Rouse shared the car with David Oxton in a couple of events before Oxton took it over for the NZ series. Great looking car, but was ultimately a little disappointing.David Oxton's Sierra At Wigram .Wasn't this the car that Paul Radisich raced and won the championship with in England?
This car is still MIA I believe?
Think it was co-driven by NZ Formula Ford man ----- Clark. (Can not remember first name, blond hair) had a trailer outfit in Barry's Point Rd on north shore
Rod, guess that would be Glen Clark.
Brock and Parsons replaced Crooke who subsequently seems to have disappeared.
That's him Grant, good guy, had trailer outfit called 'Pinto Trailers' it's coming back.
Steve - love TRS, have been reading it from the UK for a while, finally thought I might be able to add something useful…
Andrew Bagnall and I did a deal to buy the ex-Andy Rouse car and a Datapost Escort RS1600 turbo for the 1986 NZ season. We also arranged for Paul Radisich to return to UK F3 in 1986 with Murray Taylor. THe Ford was a German-market Merkur that Andy had built into a winning car. Ran 2.3L Pinto turbocharged, very effective but nothing on the RS500s about to come out. We did the deal directly with Stuart Turner at Ford, so I guess they must have owned the car, not Andy. David Oxton drove mainly, sharing with Andy on the longer events. Bags and I ran the Escort in the long races as well. Merkur wasn't as successful as we had hoped, believe it went to Australia after that, but not sure….
Despite some great races and good podiums, Paul never won the UK championship but he did of course win the 1994 (Monza) and 1995 (Donnington) Touring Car World Cups with the Ford Mondeo. I was sharing his (small, motel!) room with him at Monza and it was a real thrill to hear the NZ anthem played over the circuit - bettered only by the dinner that evening when the whole room rose and applauded him as we walked in. Monza grid had 14 current or ex F1 drivers all in Super Tourers, so he did pretty well!
Very sorry to read the sad news re Dave McKinney - great bloke.
Rob Whitehouse
Hi Rob, fantastic first post! Many thanks, its great to have you here.
Thanks for the info on the Sierra. I'm pretty certain its first NZ race was the 1986 Wellington Street Race, where Rouse and Oxton shared the car. Rouse put it on pole, but it suffered a mechanical problem early on. They would have driven the car together at the Pukekohe 500km race the following weekend as well. Then Rouse would have headed back home and Oxton drove the car on his own throughout the remaining NZ touring car events.
At some stage, the car ended up with Mark Petch, and he took it to Australia. He entered it at Bathurst in 1986, and Robbie Francevic was one of the drivers, having fallen out with the Volvo Team Australia after winning the '86 Australian Touring Car Championship in a 240T. Leo Leonard was the other driver. They qualified 21st, but were out of the race after 27 laps. From there, the trail seems to dry up. It didn't race in NZ the following season, and it doesn't appear to have raced in Aus again. It just sort of quietly disappeared.
Like you say Rob, it wasn't as successful as you'd hoped, but it was still a significant car, having won the 1985 BTCC. And, furthermore, it was a lovely looking car.
Steve, it was a dog. It had a few successes here in NZ but was as unreliable as the weather. I recall at 86 Bathurst it broke so many rockers we could have started up our own foundry and supplied metal to the Chinese!!!!
Dave
Frosty, know what you mean but not cars fault, the car did not put the engine together, and they were still pretty experimental back then and different parts than available for some other outfits.
It was a nice looking car and had finished a couple of races in BTCC. so was right at some stage,
to be fair to Volvo Robbie had a fall out with the team manager, not the maker. Team manager John Sheppard was notorious for being a "my way or the highway" bloke and butted heads with Robbie on the direction the car was being developed and tested. Robbie wanted to be involved with both but team manager John Sheppard saw him as "just a driver" and refused to involve him, Robbie was so passionate about it he left the team after one race when the car didnt show up at the track until just before the end of qualifying and wasnt set up and he had to get dispensation to start at the rear of the grid
As for the Petch XR4T, it had a habit of popping off rockers (not breaking them, though it did break one in the race itself) at Bathurst, Rouse had built the engine with a 6500RPM redline but the only gearing available had the car doing 7200 down conrod!
This car did a couple of the early rounds of the ATCC before being sold to Tony Fall at GM Opel. The car has ended up back in Australia and was restored as the French TCC but will return to early MHDT Group A.This car? Kept lunching its valve gear and timing chain, IIRC.
Jon Crooke is still around and going strong. Here's his most recent venture, following on from the "Hyperstimulator"......
http://www.hyperracer.com/index.html
Thats good to know Rowan! I hadn't realised it had left Australia.
There was an excellent article on the career of Robbie put together by Gerard Richards in New Zealand Classic Car mag several years ago. Robbie said pretty much the same thing in the interview.
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