5-litre Commodore will lead G.M. race challenge

Press, 15 October 1982, Page 19

5-litre Commodore will lead G.M. race challenge

BEHIND the WHEEL with

Peter Greenslade

Thirty of . the fastest saloons ever built in New Zealand have just been completed by General Motors at the Trentham plant.

They are versions of the 5litre Holden Commodore V 8 with modifications made by Peter Brock of the Australian Holden Dealer Racing Team. Brock, a long-time Holden race driver, has won the Australian saloon car endurance race at Bathurst on six occasions, the most recent time being less than a fortnight ago in a Commodore similar to the locallyassembled versions.

Probably one of the fastest saloon cars in the world today, the locally-assembled' Commodore SS will spearhead the General Motors challenge in the three-round Benson and Hedges endurance race series for production cars that will open with a two hours and a half race at Bay Park, Mount Maunganui, at the Labour Day weekend towards the end of this month. The following weekend a threehour race will be held at the Manfeild circuit at Feilding and the final race will be of six hours duration at Pukekohe on November 14. The Commodore SS features a high performance

version of the 5-litre V 8 production engine, four-speed close-ratio gearbox, limitedslip differential, 90-litre petrol tank, modified suspension. special alloy wheels and front and rear air dams. With no less than 10 of the SS Commodore models entered in the series. General Motors obviously hopes to end. once and for all, the domination of Timaru’s Leo Leonard and Tauranga’s Gary Sprague. This year

Leonard and Sprague are driving one of the three Ford Fairmont Ghias entered in the series. However, the odds-on favourites this time almost certainly will be David Oxton and Australian Brock in a Commodore. Australia will be quite strongly represented in the series. Like Brock, Peter Janson will race in the full series; his partner in the first two races will be none other than Denis Hulme, the 1967 world champion Formula 1 driver, and at Pukekohe, the 1980 Australian world champion driver, Alan Jones. The Australians are all involved in the Commodore challenge. Apart from Leonard who, with Sprague, must be rated as having much more than a runner's chance in the series which, often enough, is won by masterly pit work and tactics, rather than sheer speed on the racing circuit, South Island representation is not strong. However, one entry of particular interest to Christchurch will be that of Rod Coppins, a past winner of the Pukekohe endurance races, and Bruce Bellis, a Christchurch publican. They will drive a Toyota Celica, a car that showed up in last year’s series as one that the Fords and Holdens have to reckon with.