The ATCC's traditional swing west was both business as usual and a complete break from tradition. For the South Australian round at Mallala, the Nissan team exhibited their traditional crushing dominance... only we didn't see it, because it was never televised. Wanneroo, on the other hand, gave us some good telly with hard racing and juicy commentary, but it happened just as the series leader started finding ways to stumble. Mark Skaife had been mighty impressive so far, but he was still young after all, and there were no guarantees in this business – especially if you made a habit of fumbling it.
La Lacuna Mallala
On the shelf behind me, living rent-free, I have the officially-licensed book Dick Johnson Racing: 30 Year Anniversary, which states unambiguously that the Mallala round received no live TV coverage because it overlapped with the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. This is flat-out wrong. Mallala took place on 31 May, whereas the Olympics didn't begin until 25 July, carrying on until the closing ceremony on 9 August. I'd love to make some disparaging remarks about the quality of Scott Publishing & Media's research, except I didn't notice either, until an ad for the upcoming Olympics appeared in the Wanneroo video below! A pity, because I had jokes written about how Barcelona not only took away our touring car broadcast but also made a star of Santiago Calatrava.
So the city fathers of Barcelona might have a lot to answer for, but we can't pin this one on them: Mallala avoided broadcast for some other reason. Channel Seven did send a film crew, and the usual highlight reel appeared on Sportsworld a week later, but this too has failed to appear in my YouTube searches. Thankfully, it sounds like we aren't missing much. Mark Skaife won the event for the second year in a row, apparently without much trouble, as one report noted that Mallala and Godzilla were virtually made for each other:
The venue could have been designed specifically with the GT-R in mind: some long straights preceded and followed by some slow, awkward corners, with plenty of low-speed turns in between.
The only material outcome of the round was, with Richards finishing only 9th, Skaife had a chance to clinch the championship in Western Australia, where he'd taken his first win twelve months earlier.
Kids These Days
1992 was a strange new world for Jim Richards; being overshadowed by a teammate was not a thing that had ever really happened to him before. The only other time he'd had a proper teammate (in the latter days of JPS Team BMW) there'd been a very firm pecking order: Tony Longhurst had been the team's junior driver, the apprentice, and he'd known it to his bones; Frank Gardner would not have tolerated him had it been otherwise. In fact, the only time in Jim's entire career he'd been less than a team's number-one had been while co-driving for Peter Brock, back in the halcyon days of the Holden Dealer Team. Even that was a questionable comparison, as he hadn't been a teammate to Brock so much as a ring-in, a hired gun brought in just for the endurance rounds... and when they reunited in 1988, Richo quietly put him in the shade anyway. Jim had ended that year's ATCC fourth overall with 58 points, despite missing one round at Symmons Plains; Peter, who'd owned the team and entered himself in every single round, finished the series only sixth, with 47.
But Skaife was a different matter. It's not like Jim hadn't realised what he was in for – he'd found out how good this youngster was literally on day one, when he took his first test in a Nissan and realised that, although Mark had only been warming up the car, he actually had to stretch himself to match his times. Jim Richards was was an experienced driver at the peak of his powers, yet here was this Skaife, 21 years of age, with plenty of learning and improving still to do, and already he was this good? Sure, there was an ongoing bromance between them, but don't let that fool you: at their core, these were still two hyper-competitive individuals, and both of them knew the first person they had to beat was their teammate. Just because it lacked the bitterness of Senna-vs-Prost doesn't mean it lacked the intensity.
Complicating things, starting this year Wanneroo Park was no longer Wanneroo Park. Some extra tarmac had been laid down to create a secondary, shorter ciruit for the lesser series, and the whole complex had been renamed Barbagallo Raceway after the doyen of the WA motorsport scene, Alf Barbagallo. Barbagallo's services to local racing barely needed to be spelled out: the man himself was back on the grid, after a gap year in '91, driving a sleek new VN Commodore in the sinister black of his new sponsor, Castrol. This was chassis PE 015, the latest in a fast-growing list of Perkins Commodores, either because Larry had been cut off from Peter Brock's Mobil money and forced to build customer cars to make ends meet, or the growing pile of customer orders (and their deposits) gave Larry the latitude to quit Brock and strike out on his own. PE 015 was destined to become part of the early generation of 5.0-litre V8 touring cars, but it was far from the only Barbagallo car on the track that weekend.
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| Alf's new car in Adelaide, later in the year. |
In truth, both the Barbagallo team's old VL Walkinshaws had been entered in the race. One of them, still in its all-over pink livery, was in the hands of Phil Johnson (no relation to Dick), who seems to've been a Victoria-based Sprintcar racer but who'd also made an appearance in the Bathurst 12 Hour in a V6 Commodore. The other was in the hands of Ian Love, and it stood out thanks to a black chin-piece that distinguished it from its sibling. The black in its colour scheme and the racing #66 suggested it had been Barbagallo's own #96 back in 1990; the former #77 supposedly ended its days in a landfill somewhere, but Phil Johnson's presence suggested that hadn't happened yet. Also, the Channel Seven broadcast listed Love's entry as, "the Coca-Cola Commodore", but they must have misheard: it was actually Coco's Bar & Restaurant, a swanky waterfront eatery on the south bank of the Swan!
Completing the quartet of Westralian entrants was privateer Mike Steele, but he was rather less fortunate than the Barbagallo trio. Steele's mount was an ex-Peter Brock Sierra, chassis BRT S1, the very car that had brought Peter his final Bathurst pole in 1989. Steele had purchased the car when Peter switched back to Holden at the start of 1991, and here in 1992 it was still in its base Mobil livery, which would've been obvious had it only made it to the race proper. Instead, Steele had withdrawn it after the Cosworth engine split a bore in practice, but he would continue to race it in WA events until 1994, and assuming my information is up to date, he still owns the car today.
That was as close as any Brock representation got to this weekend, however, as Peter and his Advantage Racing team stayed home, disappointing a legion of fans who'd come to see him. Again, his outfit was in the depths of financing a new VP Commodore, so they just didn't have the means to make the long trip to Perth to do nothing much.
Qualifying
The inherent understeer of the Nissans was a curse at Wanneroo, so it was no surprise when John Bowe came out swinging to set fastest time in practice, a 57.78 (compared to 59.10 for Johnson last year). Bowe used that as a springboard to victory in the three-lap Dash on Sunday morning, but a surprise second-fastest on both occasions was Seton's hireling Wayne Park, who at long last managed a performance worthy of one of the better seats in the game. Unfortunately for him, it was probably "too little too late", as Seton was already been in talks with someone to replace him. There was a reason Frank Gardner had gone to the trouble of running a third car for Paul Morris, after all...
Heat 1
The first 25-lap heat was the usual story as both Nissans steadily but relentlessly worked their way forward... until it wasn't. Jim fought a stern battle with Seton & Park in the early laps, then Skaife lost two spots to Longhurst & Jones in the latter stages, but the final outcome was that Richards finished further up the field than he'd started, but Skaife? Not so much. 9th to 7th was nothing to write home about, especially when 5th had been on the cards. Worse, his other title rival Bowe ran away and won the heat with ease, fist-pumping as he crossed the line (and rightly so – victory is fleeting and must be enjoyed). Johnson kept it on the island to take a deserving 2nd, but he kept his feet firmly on the ground:
Mike Raymond: What a day, so far? 1-2 pal!
Dick Johnson: Yeah, so far, Mike. So far.
Raymond: How do the tyres feel?
Johnson: Well, they're getting a little bit greasy but I'm trying to look after them enough so I've got enough for the next race too.
Always that concern about tyre life. Lurking in the shadows also was Jim Richards, and although he'd finished a good ten seconds behind Bowe, 3rd place was still 3rd place. With Skaife completing a tough run to bring it home only 7th, the odds abruptly swung away from the central coast wunderkind and towards a last-ditch comeback from either of his main title rivals. As always, Heat 2 would be the crucible.
As Allan Moffat was about to point out, however, the difference between the Winfield Nissans in Heat 1 and Heat 2 was night and day: they'd been mysteriously short on pace in the first heat, but they were about to get it back. The clue was in a comment Fred Gibson made to Australian Muscle Car not too long ago, which I found buried in my research notes. Simply, in the down time between the heats, Freddo had his mechanics pop the bonnets and swap out a couple of EPROM chips.
[The GT-R programme] was the pinnacle of what we've ever done. The pinnacle in terms of the drivers, team, engineers and budget; also the enjoyment we all had.
The car was dominant. It wasn't easy. It was a hard car to build and drive. It was heavy. It had Larry blueing the whole time saying the car should be restricted, but we ran them to the rules we had. I suppose, looking back, I fiddled with things a bit, depending on how the races were going to go. I knew racing was becoming entertainment then. You couldn't have cars blazing off into the distance, so I just adjusted the boost accordingly. – Fred Gibson, AMC: Muscle Racers, Vol.1
The Gibson team had to walk a very fine line. Their job was to win the championship, after all, but if they showed everything the car had to give, CAMS would come roaring back with a mallet to impose yet more parity adjustments – once burned, twice shy. Since the car was already heavy enough to crack its wheel rims, the logical next thing would be to lower those pesky pop-off valves, and since the team had worked feverishly (but very quietly) to re-tune the engine around them, voiding all that hard work at this late stage didn't bear thinking about. Throwing the other drivers a bone occasionally was the only logical choice, but after Heat 1, Gibson decided they'd had their fun: there was a title on the line. It was time to get the cane out of the cupboard.
Heat 2
Everyone knew the Nissans would be off the line like a slingshot, but would that be enough to overthrow the all-DJR front row? As it turned out, almost! When the go code was given, Johnson got bogged down in wheelspin and forced Richards to weave around him, the obese GT-R forced to make two lurching changes of direction in as many seconds. But by the time they hit the braking zone for Turn 1, Richards was up on Bowe and ready to make a fight out of it, so the manoeuvre had worked. With Skaife also starting like a lightning bolt, that made the top four Nissan-Ford, Nissan-Ford.
With the title visibly slipping from his grasp, Skaife was once again beautifully aggressive, throwing that Nissan at the corners just enough to point it in the right direction for the exit. By such means he was able to keep his nose right up to Dick, and dive bomb him into Turn 6 to lay claim to 3rd place, so now the pressure was on for Jim Richards. In front of him was the man he needed to unseat to take a race win; behind, his teammate and main title rival. Passing the one while keeping the other behind would be a huge undertaking, even with 22 laps in hand.
By lap 6 both Nissans were lapping in formation but once again Bowe was off and gone, as neither GT-R had the answer to his speed at this stage. The gap was a heathy 2.91 seconds by lap 7, but as always the question was whether he was asking too much too soon from a finite set of Dunlops. It seemed that question occurred to Bowe as well, as by lap 11 the gap had stabilised at around 3 seconds, as he backed off to preserve his pace.
Indeed, by lap 17 Bowe's lead had been shaved to 2 seconds. Were his Dunlops finally hitting their limits? The clue was to watch the other Shell Sierra of Dick Johnson, which was currently in a battle with Tony Longhurst. Tony had provided the entertainment for this race, boxing with Glenn Seton and drawing plenty of smoke from one of Seto's tyres after a love tap bent the blue Sierra's wheel arch. But even so, Longhurst was only a sideshow... until he caught everyone by surprise by dive-bombing Johnson into Turn 1 to take 4th place.
That made it official: Johnson's tyres were finished, and the body language showed he had to get the car very straight before he could unleash the full 600 available horses. Bowe had a rather more deft touch than Johnson this year, but even so his own tyres couldn't have been far behind: Johnson was now driving on ice.
By lap 19 Bowe's lead was now only 1.5 seconds, and it was about to go back to nothing. In his new VN Commodore, Alf Barbagallo was a lap down and couldn't make that wide-body Holden disappear to let the leaders through. Bowe got held up, and that 1.5-second gap evaporated in an instant as Richards closed right up on his tail. And if Richards got past Bowe, that would throw enough points his way that he'd take the round overall. No pressure...
On lap 22, the eleventh hour, Mark Skaife had a surprise lose on the front straight, just after the pit entry. An awkward three-point turn later and he'd brought the car into pit lane, so something had gone catastrophically wrong – two somethings, actually. Firstly, whatever mechanical issue had sent him to the pits in the first place, and secondly, the late-braking lock-up that had caused him to spin. With a lap to go Skaife was still in the pits with mechanics swarming over his car – one of the GIO lads was even good enough to come running and park a fan in front of the radiator. They focused on changing tyres, so it seems likely he'd just picked up a puncture – a devastating blow to his title hopes at this late hour. By the time he was released again he was dead last, having been passed by the whole field. Shockingly, it looked like there would be no points today for young Mark!
Lap 23: By lap 23 Dick Johnson was driving a Formula Drift car, and the people stuck behind him (namely Seton, Gibbs and Morris) were getting very fed up. With two laps to go, Seton bit the bullet and went for it, sticking a nose inside Dick under power out of the first turn. But Dick was still wobbling, waiting for his rears to bite, and that was enough for him to swing into the side of Seton and triggering a total loss of control. Dick flew off the circuit and landed backwards in the dust just outside the Esses, while Seton likewise wobbled but caught it and carried on. Gibbs and Morris pulled their heads in and kept driving, accepting this gift at Johnson's expense.
Richards meanwhile was still hunting down Bowe, but he seemed unable to make any headway. He gave a hint of a dive-bomb into Turn 6 but he was too far back; Bowe drifted beautifully out of the turn in response, showing that his even if his tyres were going marshmallowy, his driving was still razor-sharp.
Last lap! Bowe got wide out of Turn 1 and Richards pounced, sticking his nose up the inside in a carbon copy of Seton's move on Johnson. Likewise they touched, but this time the outcome was different. Richo's nose unseated the rear of Bowe's Sierra and sent him across the kerbing, but Bowe gathered it up and carried on; Richards followed him through the dirt and just barely missed a stack of tyres. Up to the spoon-like Turn 6, Richards sent it in deep before he rotated, ready to capitalise on the GT-R's astonishing corner exits. Up and over the hill he was once again nosing alongside Bowe, but Bowe was only being patient, waiting for his car to straighten up before he unleashed the full power of the DJR-tuned Cosworth. Over the crest of the hill Richo had to sit helpless as his prey neatly extricated itself from his trap, leaving only one more corner to get it done.
Richards was a long way back as they entered Turn 7 but Bowe's tyres were dead, and the GT-R was at its finest putting power down. As they stormed up to the line they were door-to-door, but in one last surge of turbo horsepower Bowe's Sierra stretched its legs and carried him across the line to take a thrilling victory!
In the final acounting, Bowe won the round of course, with Richards second and Skaife – to his chagrin – only eighth, thanks to a bruising combination of 7th and 11th on the track. The only saving grace was that it had happened at a race so under-subscribed even last place was dishing out some reasonable points, and those 14 extra points for eighth had now moved Skaife beyond the reach of anyone but his teammate. With 204 points for Skaife to Jim's 188, Longhurst's 165 and Bowe's ignoble 162, that meant, ironically, Bowe's perfect performance had actually eliminated him from the title fight! From here on, it was only a question of which Nissan driver would take the championship, and Skaife had to make the trip home in the knowledge that if he had this sort of weekend at Oran Park, he would lose the 1992 Shell Australian Touring Car Championship. Jim Richards would simply not let him have it without a fight.
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