News Australian Stock Car Auto Racing
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AUSCAR (Australian Stock Car Auto
Racing) was an auto racing sanctioning body owned by Bob Jane, which ran
American-style Superspeedway racing in Australia. The initial AUSCAR
venue was the Calder Park Thunderdome Superspeedway, but over time the
series expanded to include the Bob Jane owned 1/2 mile Speedway
Superbowl at the eastern end of Adelaide International Raceway, the
Surfers Paradise Street Circuit, and eventually several Australian road
racing circuits. Three categories of racing car were developed to run on
the Australian circuits.
* NASCAR: imported and locally developed
versions of the American race cars
* AUSCAR: down spec-ed cars, closer to production specification,
initially just the Holden Commodore, but quickly expanded to include the
Ford Falcon
* Sportsman: lower specification again, cheaper to buy or build and
older cars, and some former AUSCARs
Other categories, such as the HQ's, a
category based around the Holden HQ Kingswood powered by the 3.3L Holden
red motor, were also popular at the Calder Park Thunderdome. Another
category was based on the American dirt track category known as Legends
(unrelated to Aussie Racing Cars), since disappeared from circuit
racing. And Formula Vee open wheelers raced briefly on the Thunderdome
apron.
AUSCAR was also the name used for the
second tier racing category that raced alongside the Australian NASCAR
stock car racing series, starting in 1986 and continuing until 2001. The
cars were not pure space frame chassis like NASCAR, but were built on
Australian Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon road car chassis. As a
result, AUSCARs are right-hand-drive, and race clockwise at ovals,
compared to the left-hand-drive anticlockwise NASCAR vehicles. Brad
Jones dominated the category winning five consecutive titles during the
peak of the series popularity, all in Commodore's. Other notable drivers
include: Marshall J. Brewer, Terry Wyhoon, Russell Ingall, John
Faulkner, Jim Richards, Steven Richards, Adam Pay, Nathan Pretty, Nicole
Pretty and Leigh Watkins (who was the only driver to win the
championship in a Ford Falcon). Even Australian touring car legend Peter
Brock briefly tried AUSCAR in 1988 driving a Falcon and again at his
testimonial race meeting (held on the Calder Park road circuit) in 1995
driving a Commodore.
Due to the returning popularity of the
Australian Touring Car Championship, relaunched as V8 Supercars in 1997,
and financial difficulties, AUSCAR was shut down and the drivers
dispersed into other national racing series.
