The 1987 Tooheys 1000 was the 1st and only year that the Great Race was part of the World Touring Car Championship, so had a large number of Ford Sierras and BMW M3s come from overseas to compete in the pouring rain.
This exact coverage of Bathurst '87 is what started my obsession with the Sierra RS500, ultimately leading me to now being the custodian of one of the two genuine Brocky Mobil Sierras remaining. Despite having various cuts of this race on multiple official VHS tapes and DVDs I haven't seen that Des Lynam intro for 34 years. Thanks for sharing. Brought back great memories...!
The cars were NOT to WTCC rules and it wasnt Brock that protested, the protest was by Frank gardner, Brock refused to sign it. As for the wheel arches, they were externally higher allowing 17" tyres whereas every other Sierra team could only run 16s, and the rear arches were modified internally, both modifications are against Group A regulations, regardless of any gentlemans agreements. All the M3s were technically illegal, running non standard inlet manifolds, but that wasnt enforced until 88
10 years ago, but there's more to the story as well: When Grice and Brock teams were racing the WTCC in Europe, they were shocked at the cheating, and they warned all the teams that it would not be tolerated at Bathurst, and that they would be protested if they turned up with their cars like that, so they were well warned ahead of time. Frank Gardener is a no nonsense guy, and he was pissed at what he saw, commenting they they were running the only legal BMWs in the world.
@@markmark5269 Frank Lowndes, (father of Craig) was the Australian chief scrutineer in 1987, he went to the Spa 24 hour race and said he was appalled at the blatant cheating, and warned all the European teams at the drivers meeting it would not be tolerated when they got to Australia. They ignored him, and Eggenberger called him a colonist no-body who should mind his own business. When the cars were protested, FISA chief scrutineer Marcel Servais said as there were no road going RS500s at Bathurst, he couldnt make a comparison so hence no decision on the spot, and advised Frank Gardner to drop it as the cars had been passed by him all year....
@@davidewhite69 Thanks for filling in the deatils David, appreciated. Of course someone was smart enough to take a molding of the Eggenberger guard profile, and the rest is history :-)
Let's face it, this was the 80's. A massive burst of new technology that most people had no idea how to regulate so the wrong person in the right place could kill off any cars they didn't like
Grice could have gone back to back - he was thrashing the living organs off the vl - and it eventually gave in - what a shame - but hey - he got one back in 1990 - to me he was the true aussie hard cherger - not the brock showboat racer - but a true grit - and honest/purist touring car racer
Wow I remember the day. Biggest variances and variety of heavyweight power cars.Thanks for posting. Was a bugger that it wasn't a coverage of the FULL race. I've changed my thumbs up to a thumbs down. Very disappointing that it wasn't the full race or excerpts from it.
Well they didn't cheat the cars where to WTCC rules and it was a WTCC event. The Brock camp protested and won the protest almost a year later but the team didn't lose there WTCC points as still held the win in there championship. So basically it was just to look after Brock and Holden. The front flairs where mounted 1cm higher than our rules. Would not have made a difference.
You are wrong on soo many fronts. Mainly, Brock had no5hing to do with the protest. Fred Gibson, Frank Gardner and Larry perkins wanted him to join the protest but refused. Take the tin foil hat off mate. And whilst this was a round of the wtcc, it was to group a rules which we had here as well. There were no different regulations for group a in the wtcc to here.
no chance at all when a Sierra has 500+ HP and a minimum allowed weight of 1160 KG and 10" tyre width, whereas the TWR Holdens had just under 500HP but had a minimum weight of 1340KG and 11" tyre width allowed. The rules were made by Europeans originally to keep the yank v8s out of their racing. In 87 they made sure the Holdens would not be competetive by making them run more weight and a forced drop in tyre size, whereas turbos got freedom in intercoolers, inlet manifolds and less weight, fair?
david white : in 1988 the Turbos were made to carry more weight because the capacity was a turbo factor of X 1.7 . ( 1987 x 1.4 ) Also in 1988 the turbos had to run standard road car intercoolers.
@@BruceLee-sw4ms But the formula still allowed qualification boost to be raised, and the naturally aspirated cars weight penalties never equated to turbo car weight with HP and tyre size. The Commodores revitalisation came from having better durability modifications, like 8000 rpm NASCAR conrods and dual throttle body EFi systems...it took about 4 years for the turbo cars to get pegged back.
@@deanstevenson6527 / in 1990 Cams run their own rules group A became group 3A. The Sierra got an extra 50kg while the commodore lost 50kg. The Sierra lost an inch from 1997 10” rim to 9” rim . Nissan GTR was made to run 1400kg in 1992 Bathurst .
Like group 2 1976, tyre width and weight was dependant on capacity, this was revised in 1988: engine size (cc) fuel tank max. tyre width (inch) min. weight (kg) 1982-1987 1988 1982-1987 1988 -1300 80 7,5" 6,5" 720 700 1301-1600 90 8" 7" 800 780 1601-2000 100 9" 8" 880 860 2001-2500 110 10" 9" 960 940 2501-3000 120 10" 9" 1035 1020 3001-3500 120 11" 10" 1110 1100 3501-4000 120 11" 10" 1125 1180 4001-4500 120 12" 11" 1255 1260 4501-5000 120 12" 11" 1325 1340 5000-5500 120 13" 12" 1400 1420 over 5500 cc 120 13" 12" 1400 1500 In 1988 the turbo factor changed to 1.7. Furthermore pre-1988 one was allowed to put rims on the car according to the engine size providing you could fit them on the car. In 1988 that rule was changed so that one was only allowed to add (or decrease) 2” to the homologated width. That’s why the Eggenberger-Sierra’s raced on 10” wide rims in 1987 (homologated with 7” rims), but only 9” in 1988 although the rules still allowed 3.5 litre cars to run 10” rims. The divisions were 0-1600 cc, 1600-2500 cc and over 2500 cc. It started like a dream. A touring car like a touring car should look, the BMW 528, won the championship, just like its BMW 1800 grandfather had done in the sixties. But the shape of things to come, the Jaguar XJ-S, already threw a shadow over group A. Although it was unlikely that in any year 5000 Jaguar XJS were produced, the car was homologated. BMW, who had rather raced the 635 CSi, but were sure that it couldn't be homologated anyway, homologated the 635 in 1983. An even more unlikely tourer, the Maserati Biturbo, got its homologation as well. Another problem was that just 500 cars of an "evolution" type could be homologated, after homologation of the base model. So we were treated to Volvo turbo's with water injection, and a Sierre RS 500 with a big turbo, which made the street version nearly undrivable. Despite all this, group A brought us great racing, impressive cars and some very heated competition. And Spa was back...
