Strathmore likely to run race series

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 28

Strathmore likely to run race series

BEHIND the WHEEL

with

Peter Greenslade

After blowing hot and cold on the World Touring Car Championship, following EISA’s ditching of the Strathmore Group and the appointment of Bernie Ecclestone as International Automobile Federation Vice-President, Promotional Affairs, it seems certain that Strathmore Promotions will conduct the Nissan Mobil 500 Wellington waterfront Group A touring car race as a world championship event in October. lan Gamble, the Strathmore man who put together the World Touring Car Championship proposals with a view to Strathmore running the series, has left the company and Chris Mullane has taken over as chief executive of Strathmore Promotions.

Mullane visited Europe recently, his objective being to prevent Strathmore’s considerable expense and years of work on the World Touring Car Championship being wasted, and also to promote the Nissan Mobil 500 and James Hardie 1000, Australia’s premier annual touring car race at Bathurst, for which Strathmore is acting as marketing consultant.

While he was away,

Mullane discussed with Ecclestone the levy to be imposed by FISA on each

of the Pacific region rounds and returned to Auckland under the impression that each Pacific race organiser would have to front up with a $U5250,000 levy. That, in Strathmore’s view, was just not on and the company lost little time in stating publicly that there was a possibility that the Wellington Nissan Mobil 500 might be withdrawn from the World Touring Car Championship. The possibility, according to Mullane, was just one of several alternatives — each intended to safeguard the standing of the Wellington event as one of the world’s top touring car races — being examined by Strathmore in the wake of the World Touring Car Championship’s "chaotic birth” at Monza in Italy towards the end of March.

At that, the opening race in the new world series, BMW M3s filled seven of the first eight

places, but all were disqualified because of alleged body panel irregularities. The race winner was declared to be the Australian Holden Commodore in which Allan Moffat and John Harvey crossed the finishing line in seventh place. Since Monza, Strathmore has been able to study FISA written rules for the Group A world series and has assured itself that the levy, as originally announced, is SUS2O,OOO, a figure which Strathmore is quite happy to meet, according to Strathmore Promotions’ media manager, Wayne Munro. Strathmore is handling only the marketing for the Australian James Hardie 1000, but Munro believes that the organisers of the race are also happy to go along with the SUS2O,OOO levy.

Although these are early days as far as the World Touring Car Championship is concerned, and Strathmore will be carefully watching the situation as it develops in the months ahead, at this stage it looks as though the Wellington race will be a round in the world championship. Now, it seems, all that remains is to see who supports the race. With BMW, Alfa Romeo, Ford, Maserati and apparently the Moffat/Harvey Holden Commodore all registered and paid up to participate in the complete series of races, it would be surprising if these marques did not turn up at Wellington. Others are eligible to compete on a fee-per-race basis and some of the leading Australians and New Zealanders are likely to make the Wellington starting grid on that basis.

In fact, on the face of it, the. team most unlikely to be at Wellington is that of Tom Walkinshaw. A regular but not too successful supporter of the waterfront race, Walkinshaw fielded Rovers until this year when his team appeared with a pair of Jaguar XJS coupes, the driver pairings being Walkinshaw/ Win Percy and Armin Hahne/Denny Hulme. Since then the team has largely dispersed because Walkinshaw is dissatisfied with the manner in which the World Touring Car Championship is being conducted. As his Jaguars are no longer eligible to contest the series, Walkinshaw has been developing Commodores with the blessing of the Australian manufacturer, but he has given no indication when these cars will appear on a starting grid.

Walkinshaw shows evidence of having forgotten about Group A, at least temporarily, for he is heavily involved with the Silk Cut Jaguar team which is at present dominating Group C sports car racing. Hahne, left without a drive with Walkinshaw, is contesting the Group A world series in a Maserati Biturbo, while Hulme is helping out New Zealander Neville Crichton, driving his Ford Cosworth Sierra in the Australian Touring Car Championship rounds when other commitments prevent Crichton from racing. Percy seems to have faded away into the saloon racing background. On the face of it, Walkinshaw might find it difficult to muster an effective driving team if he does decide to have a crack at the Wellington race with the Commodores.