Crowe in Aust. B.M.W. team

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 8

Crowe in Aust. B.M.W. team

By

JOHN HAWKINS

The Christchurch driver, Trevor Crowe, who enjoyed a successful season as part of the Archibalds Motor Sport Team in his first season of Group A racing, has been included in the top Australia JPS B.M.W. Team as part of a twocar assault on that country’s two premier endurance races.

The opportunity to race at Sandown Park, Melbourne, on September 14 and Bathurst on October 5, has come about as a direct result of the German B.M.W. company’s decision to withdraw from Formula One and direct its energies towards Group A saloon car events.

Crowe will share a car with the veteran Australian driver, Kevin Bartlett, in support of the team’s regular drivers,

the Queenslander, Tony Longburst, and the ex patriate New Zealander, Jim Richard. Although the B.M.W. G3SCSI that Crowe will drive will be raced in JPS Team BMW livery, the car will actually be-

long to Archibald Motor Sport. After the Australian races, the car .will be shipped to New Zealand, where Crowe will contest the Benson and Hedges six-hour race, the threerace North Island Global series and the two Nissan Mobil events. The JPS team will provide a relief driver where needed.

Although the B.M.W. 635C51 had been thought to be nearing the end of its competitive career, and consideration had been given to running the smaller B.M.W. 325 i by by the Archibalds’ team, further homologation of parts by the Bavarian car maker for the 635 convinced the team to continue with the larger car.

The Archibalds’ team boss, Mr John Fairhall, said the team had not dismissed the possibility

of running either a 3251 or one of the new MS racing saloons in the future. The MS is expected to be the new flagship of B.M.W. motor sport involvement Mr Fair-hall attributed the Christchurch team’s closer ties with the JPS outfit and the German parent company to the impression made by the Archibalds team during its first season of Group A racing. “It was the team’s manner of going about its tasks, and the determined but smooth driving approach of Trevor Crowe, that Impressed B.M.W. officials who attended this year’s Nissan Mobil international, that encouraged BMW to afford as a very considerable measure of support,” said Mr Fairhall. The Australian races will be Crowe’s first experience of racing outside New Zealand.