FRANCEVIC VOLVO 1986 ATCC R2 Symmons Plains

[@Dan40049]

Thanks very much for this upload. I could be wrong but my guess is Fury was balked by Gary Rogers in the BMW 325 and that's how Francevic passed him. Also John Harvey has a race cam in his car but no footage is shown from it, must have been a technical glitch. I hope Chevron release this race with the missing footage from the ad breaks in the future. I think ch 7 had too many ad breaks in this race. We taped the late night replay of this race in 1986. This version has some extra footage not shown on the replay, the John Harvey pass on Dick Johnson is completely missing for instance. Also some of the late race footage of John Smith's corolla is cut out.

[@KnockAndAskToday]

Fantastic and very interesting race. Wonderful work Guys!

[@Super100MPH]

Thank you

[@Dany45UR]

Intratable Francevic con el Volvo . Y Dick Johnson un maestro , dando notas en plena carrera y peleando por posiciones 😀👍

[@Holden308]

This race saw the writing on the wall with Group A in Australia. Symmons is a power track which should have suited the higher horsepower Commodore's down to the ground, but it was the lighter turbo cars which were easier on their tyres that showed the way in qualifying and the race. It was a sign of things to come with the lighter (especially turbo) cars dominating over the heavy V8's. It was only when the 4WD, twin turbo GT-R arrived in 1990 that the heavier cars started to come to the fore....but again it wasn't a V8 but a turbo.

[@nnoddy8161]

Brock was too busy with the Good Dr and the Energy Polarizer....

[@Holden308]

As I said "with Group A" and not "for Group A", yes I was referring to the Commodore's and V8's (like Dick's Mustang) in general. At least, it was in the ATCC sprint races because the Commodore's (other than 1989) were still strong in the endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst. There were no V8 wins in the ATCC between Brock's win at Surfers Paradise later in 1986 and his win in the first heat of Round 1 at Amaroo in 1992. Commodore's did lead some ATCC races during that time, but they never won. And you are correct that the Sierra RS500 drivers would never say that those things were easy on tyres. But they still won 25 of 43 ATCC rounds between 1988 and 1992.

[@marcpaola1371]

​@Holden308 I agree, Group A was great on paper but where it went wrong was with the weights of the cars. As in a turbo Sierra can have more hp than the v8 cars but have less weight.

[@jardim23]

@@marcpaola1371 the real difference was that the later sierras and GT-Rs were solely created with the group A rulebook in mind, whereas the Commodore was always a larger, mass produced family saloon car that was converted into a racecar and not really built on a dedicated platform for racing

[@marcpaola1371]

@jardim23 I absolutely agree with you there, im a huge holden fan and group a was pretty lean for us.. The fact the commodore won 3 bathursts in group a trim against some of the best European and Japanese touring cars made up for our abysmal atcc results during thst time.

[@barryphillips7327]

BMWs were quick ( they did not have outright power, but were very good handling and braking as was the Mustang ) DJs Mustang was down a little on HP, Volvo and the Nissans were quick turbo power, John Bowe also was driving a Volvo race car ( around this time ) same team 1 was LHD the other was RHD. Volvo has the aerodynamics of a brick! Amusing funny commercial 23m. Both DJ and PB ( if he was still alive ) they would be 77 years of age PB is no longer with us ( around 2000, ) Targa Tasmania accident TVR car?? he hit a tree?? game over!

[@nnoddy8161]

Water injection working overtime???? I do miss the Group A era.