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What's so special about a Datsun from the '80s, you may ask? Well, the 1984 James Hardie 1000 was the last to be run to Australia's home-grown "Group C" touring car regulations. The Euro-centric Group A rules were just around the corner, and the prevailing attitude to them at the time could be heard in a sneer that's still around today: "Only milk and juice come in 2-litres." This would be the last time around for the Group C stonkers, so the whole thing had a last hurrah/graduation party kind of thing going on.
Don't let them tell you Group C was a golden age though - it was only gilt, with grids so small they often struggled to break a dozen cars, and endless (and I do mean endless) bickering and protesting over the legality of this or that piece of technical arcana. Take the ever-controversial Mazda RX-7s for example: the much-derided "rice burners" with their innovative Wankel rotary engines were widely considered sports cars rather than true touring cars, accepted on a technicality only. Of course, it didn't help anyone's attitude that the cars were Japanese, either (nobody born within 20 years of WWII ever forgave the Empire of the Rising Sun. To this day, I cannot tell you how weird it is for Aussies that flying overseas often involves a stopover at Changi. It's like flying to Poland and landing at Auschwitz-Birkenau International Airport). But the final straw was that they'd poached Allan Moffat, the former Ford hero, to spearhead their attack, and in his hands they'd actually become competitive (of course, Moffat wasn't without provocation given Ford's history of blowing hot and cold...).
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Most of the other cars entered in 1984 were less problematic. There was Dick Johnson, for example, by now very comfortable in Moffat's old role of Ford Hero, driving a Greens-Tuf XE Falcon he'd built himself - an Australian family car, a big V8 and a lot of elbow grease done in a shed in Queensland, all very kosher and correct. Less pleasing to the public was Jim Richards, heading up the John Player Team and its brace of BMW 635 CSi's, although the public was less worried about them because under Group C they were uncompetitive (and by now firmly had their eye on the incoming Group A era). And of course there was the professional national hero Peter Brock and the Holden Dealer Team as well, but more on them tomorrow.
Which brings us to Nissan Motorsport*, George Fury, and that Bluebird.
Nissan had been assembling Bluebirds locally since '79, but they were embarrassingly primitive compared to the proper ones made in Nippon, with ox cart suspension and no fuel-injected or turbo versions... not to mention their notoriety for leaving a trail of blue smoke everywhere they went. In fact, if you came across one on the open road, it was traditional to call the driver a menace and give him the finger!
But the one entered at Bathurst, it was a completely different beast. Nissan's team boss in those days was Howard Marsden, a former Ford company man most famous as the brains behind the Phase IV Falcon, as well as the man responsible for euthanasing it when the Supercar Scare made it impossible to race. So Howard was a man who knew Bathurst and the local racing scene, and knew precisely how close to the wind he needed to sail, and knew that when you work for a massive international motor company, you're a fool if you restrict yourself to local parts. Ergo, the Group C Bluebird removed the wheezy L-series motor and fitted a tuned-up, twin-spark, 1.8-litre Z18T imported directly from Japan, good for about 260 kW on an average day. Which was a hell of a lot at the time; the Cleveland under Dick Johnson's bonnet, the biggest, best-prepared engine on the grid, was barely making 300.
But Saturday, September 29, 1984 was no average day: it was bloody freezing. Winter had come back for one last dance before summer took over, and there was even a little snow scattered across the top of the mountain before the mid-morning sun disposed of it. Fans in heavy jackets desperately rubbed their hands together and stomped around trailing their breath while waiting for the action to start, doing whatever it took to keep warm. But their fortitude was rewarded, as Hardie's Heroes got underway.
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Howard Marsden knew qualifying would be the turbo's big moment, and couldn't have asked for better conditions to favour it - the limiting factor for a turbo engine was heat, so the colder it got, the more boost they could use and the more power they'd ultimately have. He also knew what nobody else knew at the time, which was that the Bluebird had an illegal boost control mounted on the dash and that one of the onboard fire extinguishers had quietly been rigged to spray halon at the intercooler, bumping the power up even further (and if you think that sounds dodgy, believe me, it was par for the course in Group C. In those days CAMS didn't have the manpower to check everything properly, so anything with a plausible-sounding excuse or just failed to raise suspicion at all was usually given the all-clear)!
That said, Steve Masterton, Dick Johnson and Gricey all put in fast 2:14's, so all the Bluebird's advantage could be squandered if Fury neglected to drive it like he stole it. But they needn't have worried...
That was it: history was made. Fury's time - 2 minutes, 13.850 seconds - was an absolute bombshell. Not just the first sub-2:14 lap anyone had ever seen at Mt Panorama, but a shattering new track record. Peter Brock did his best, but even the new VK Commodore with its ferocious updated body kit couldn't deal with that turbo engine. Fury gave Nissan its first pole at Bathurst and - upsetting the Establishment mightily - took the first pole not to fall to either a Holden or a Ford.
There was murmuring as the crowds went home for a night of restless sleep, but the James Hardie 1000 was to be run over 163 laps, not just one. Sunday would be another day...
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* Small note: the car was entered under the "Nissan Motor Co." banner, but the team was more or less the same one that would one day become Gibson Motorsport, the team later responsible for Godzilla. I bring it up because I find it amusing nobody ever mentions the other Nissan team car at Bathurst in '84, the #16 Pulsar EXA driven by Fred Gibson's wife Christine (quite a racer in her own right) and a very young Glenn Seton. Were they aiming for a class victory, did they not have the budget for a second Bluebird, or was it just executive meddling? I don't know for sure, but surely they would've entered a backup car going for outright victory if they could. Still...
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...most badass Pulsar ever.
upsetting the Establishment mightily - took the first pole not to fall to either a Holden or a Ford.....
ReplyDeleteIncorrect. Kevin Bartlett took pole position at Bathurst in the Chevrolet Camaro in both 1980 and 1981.