Рет қаралды 7,619
/ super100mph
This is the third race (last year of the Group C's) including a Steve Masterton interview about his Ford Falcon with Garry Scott Nissan Bluebird Turbo, Jim Richards BMW 635, Terry Finnigan Holden Commodore and Dick Johnson's Ford Falcon.
AMSCAR Series
en.wikipedia.or...
One of the features of Amaroo Park's history has been the AMSCAR Series for touring cars, created by Amaroo's promoters, the Australian Racing Drivers Club and staged annually from 1982 to 1993. Popular with spectators and easy for Sydney's Channel 7 to telecast, it became the backbone of the Sydney touring car scene, a scene which once consisted mostly of privateers who have largely disappeared since Amaroo closed, with the major touring car teams now operating from Melbourne and south-east Queensland. On many occasions these events featured larger grid numbers than did the rounds of the national level Australian Touring Car Championship.
The AMSCAR Series had its origins in Amaroo's own Sun-7 Chesterfield Series for touring cars, first held in 1971. This would continue, under various names relating to series sponsorship, through to 1981, with a 3 litre maximum engine capacity limit being applied from 1975. A "Rothmans AMSCAR Series" [3] for touring cars was also held at Amaroo Park in 1979.[4] For 1981 the ARDC increased the maximum engine capacity limit of cars competing in their series to 3.5 litres. This allowed the participation of the 3.5 litre BMW 635 CSi of JPS Team BMW, much to the displeasure of most competing teams.[5] Fears that the growing number of Sydney based teams moving into outright class cars would result in a sharp decline in grid numbers prompted the ARDC to remove the 3.5 litre capacity limit for the 1982 series, which was promoted as the Better Brakes AMSCAR Series.[6] This allowed the V8 powered Holden Commodores, Ford Falcons and Chevrolet Camaros, as well as the V12 Jaguar XJS, to compete in the series alongside the under 3.5 litre cars such as the BMW 635 CSi, the Ford Capris and the growing list of Mazda RX-7s, as well as the Nissan Bluebird turbo As the outright cars were proving more popular with spectators, it was an attempt at attracting the headline ATCC teams to the AMSCAR Series.
In the early Group C years of the AMSCAR series, several Sydney based drivers who regularly competed in the annual four round, three race per round series became household names through the national telecast on Channel 7 (at the time, Seven's only motorsport telecasts were from Amaroo, Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne, and Bathurst as the ABC was broadcast host of the ATCC until the end of 1984). This was helped by most of the major ATCC teams at the time usually not competing in the series. Drivers such as Steve Masterton, Terry Shiel, Terry Finnigan and the late Mike Burgmann got national TV exposure they would otherwise have struggled to get had ATCC headline drivers like Peter Brock, Dick Johnson, Allan Moffat, Allan Grice and Jim Richards been regular competitors, although Grice did win the 1982 series while like Johnson and Richards contested rounds in 1983 and 1984 (Richards placed 3rd in the 1984 series). In Group C, the factory backed Nissan team also contested the series with Sydney based team driver Fred Gibson and his wife Christine driving the team's second Bluebird turbo and its powerful but evil handling, front-wheel drive Nissan Pulsar EXA respectively. Fred Gibson's win in Round 3 of the 1983 series was the first win in Australian touring car racing for a turbo powered car, and Nissan's first turbo charged touring car win anywhere in the world.