1986 ATCC SURFERS PARADISE R6 (Super100MPH Special) 

at least you’ve got some great memories of the track mate, it’s not different to sandown in Melbourne where the new immigrants living near the track whinge and whine about noise because they have no interest in motorsport and would rather have another twenty thousand houses crammed on the realestate to accommodate more boat people.

Ford didn’t homologate a Mustang evolution model which all the other manufacturers had . With a improvement in cylinder head - manifold : cam and headers - the Mustang would have been on the pace.

@@BruceLee-sw4ms Pity, it would have been good to the Mustang compete on even terms with the Commodore. Did you know that Larry Perkins was co driver for Dick Johnson in 1985 in the Mustang.

@@barryphillips7327 yes it qualified 3 rd and lost a wheel and split the oil cooler - lost too much time and finished 7th from memory

@@BruceLee-sw4ms The only time Larry Perkins drove a Ford, I have great respect for Larry both for his engineering and his driving, the days with Dick Johnson Peter Brock Larry Perkins were BETTER!!!! I was at Bathurst 1999 DJ last year driving it was AWESOME!!!!

@The_Jaguar_ Knight In my opinion probably the best of the racing was 90s todays Bathurst i barely even bother with.

When Dick first got the Mustang from Zakspeed, they quoted him 300+ bhp, but when they put the engine on their own dyno they found it only had 265, explaining why they were blown off by the Rovers and BMW at Bathurst (it didn't race anyway as Dick drove the Falcon). Work during late 1984 and through 1985 as well as some goddies in the 1 August homologation saw about 340 bhp by the time they got to Bathurst which was pretty much what they had to work with in 1986. Problem was that the Mustang weighed the same as the Commodore (1325 kg included fuel and other lubricants, but not the driver) and they had about 70 bhp less because Brocky, Grice and later and Perkins were putting out around 420. And it was also unfavourable against the Nissan's and Volvo's which weighed about 200 kg's less than the Ford and put out the same amount of power. And while the BMW 635 had less bhp (about 320), it weighed around 300 kg less than the Mustang. Johnson said he could have easily gone to a Mekur Sierra in 1986 (like Eggenberger in the ETCC), but he felt that as it was a completely different car to the RS Cosworth that was coming in 1987 it would be a waste of money and they would learn little from it in relation to the Cosworth so he decided to plug along as best he could with the V8 before going turbo a year later. Touring car teams never really bothered with 0-100 or 1/4 mile times unless it was a special occasion like the drag race demonstrations at the 1982 AGP at Calder.

Do you notice how much he complains ? Like I was 16 back then and I can remember one year at Bathurst, Dick joking about putting Holden rings in the car to the guy who was doing the interview in the pits after he was out of the race.

@charlie Dick Johnson actually said that at Bathurst in 1986 on racecam. All the Mustang needed was another 50-100 bhp and it would have won easily.

Gold Coast based businessman Keith Williams opened the track in 1966. It was a road racing circuit with the front straight also doubling as a drag strip. On the inside of the first corner was also a 1/4 mile dirt speedway. Williams would replicate this of sorts 6 years later when he opened the Adelaide International Raceway which again was a road circuit with the front straight doubling as a drag strip. There was no dirt speedway, but part of the design incorporated an 805 metre long (1/2 mile) flat track paved speedway bowl that later came to fame with Bob Jane's NASCAR and AUSCAR series'. Williams sold Surfers Paradise International Raceway in 1984 and the new owners then sold it (somewhat unexpectedly) in 1987 to developers. It ran its last race meeting on 27 August 1987 before closing. All major circuit racing in Qld moved to Lakeside while the drags moved to Willobank. The site sat derelict until it was finally torn down in 2003. It has since been totally redeveloped (you wouldn't know there was a race track there once graced by Formula One World Champions like Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Jochan Rindt and Denny Hulme) and is now the Emerald Lakes Canal Estate.