The National Motor Racing Museum is a must-see if you're in the central west of New South Wales. It's on the outside of Murray's Corner at the famous Mount Panorama in Bathurst and celebrates the rich history of Australian motorsport. There's famous cars, bikes, memorabilia, so much to take in, including the spectacular immersive room. It gives you an amazing taste of the speed, the sound and the excitement of the mountain. The museums generally open six days a week and also during events, so visit their Facebook page or themuseum's Bathurst.com.au website for further details. A motorsport podcast network production. It's time for another RICO Rewind on the V8 salute podcast. Aaron Eunen here with you is we take a look back on this day, October the 4th to 1987 on this day. Wow, the controversial, amazing, weird, it had it all, world touring car championship race at Bathurst, the 1987 James Hardy 1000. Now, of course, in the history books, the '87 race is the Peter Brock ninth and final great race win, but of course, on the day, it wasn't a win, it was third place in the second of the HDT mobile comadors for Peter Brock, Skippy Parsons and Peter MacLeod, but so many angles to talk about out of this race. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on its own just on the '87 race in an extended version, but on today's RICO Rewind, I wanted to take a look at this race in a bit closer detail because what are the things that stand out from '87? Well, it was obviously the world touring car championship, the inaugural, and at that stage, only world championship. It was revived in later years, but it was such a controversial time where Australia's race sounded like a great idea, make it part of the world championship, but it just hijacked the race. And so many of the elements that fans knew and loved had been changed to the point where so many teams and drivers just couldn't be accepted for the entry list because of the visiting international contingent. So you look through it, there were the two Texico Egenberger cars that finished one, two in the actual race on the day, a horde of BMWs from a range of teams, including Schnitzer, CBM, Bagazi. There was to be a pack of Alpha Romeo's that didn't come in the end, but then there was a smattering of other cars from other teams, some Kiwi cars. And in the end, we had quite a race. I mean, it was there was something going on everywhere, whether it was the bun fights off the track with the eligibility around the cars. I mean, even to the point where a lot of fans looked back at photos of those cars and they gee, some of those numbers look horrible because the beautifully crafted numbers that were painted on the sides of the cars, they had to be replaced to the letter of the law under the fees or regulations of FIA over the time. It was, yeah, was out of control in a lot of areas. Of course, the Texico cars were one, two across the line. Steve Soper and Pierre Doudine taking the victory on the day. They finished two laps actually in front of the two classes. Class would be getting class needs of its, but of course, in the aftermath, well, in the telecast on the day, remember Neil Crompton with that famous pit lane report about the jungle juice and the fuel going off the clock and all that stuff. In the end, it was the wheel arches that had those cars removed. And over the course of the year, I think it was always the scenario in that group, Pierre, where Ford and BMW and everybody involved kind of knew what each other was doing. And they sort of almost had a gentleman's agreement not to protest and push one another on those different areas. But of course, that wasn't the case for the Aussies who didn't like to know about that. Frank Gardner, the JPS team BMW chief led the charge. And in the end, those Sierra's were flung from the results. So Peter Brock's Commodore, which he did the car jump again. And it worked again. He'd done it in 83. He did it again in 87 after the zero five car had the engine fail in the early stages. He crossed the line three laps behind the winning Sierra. The fastest lap for that mobile Commodore on that race was a 225.4. And the sober cars fastest lap was a 21.14. So big gap between those cars in terms of their peak speed in the day. But that was when you could cross enter, you could jump cars from within the team. As long as the drivers were cross entered on the entry forms, that was permitted. Now, one of the most common things, it's easy for us to light up fans on socials by talking about those years where Brock won the race by jumping cars. But the reality was, pause of other drivers did it as well. They just didn't convert it into victory. Dick Johnson did it in 88. And if you look at the 87 race, there was the scenario that other teams could have done it. But a lot of the top line, particularly the Aussie two car teams, were either both out in the case of the Chelsea errors within the first couple of laps. So they couldn't swap over or all the other teams had their cars both in the race. So it was just the way that it played out. A little lucky too for Brock Parsons and McLeod in that the Nissan that finished second in the end, fourth on the road, Glenn Seton, John Bauer, they got held at the safety car, well, at the end of pit lane while the safety car was on the track. Remember that 87 was the debut year at Bathurst of the pace car. And there was actually two pace cars in play. So if you missed the train when it came around, they closed the pit exit and you had to wait for the next pace car to come around to pick you up. From memory, I think it was a Nissan Skyline, a couple of Skylines that were the cars pacing the field. Of course, the debut of the chase in 87, a revamped Bathurst from 86 to 87. Massive amounts of work were performed there to get it ready and up to the standards required for the World Championship race. But when you look back at this, the cars that finish on the podium, one, two, three, the mobile Commodore and the two Peter Jackson Nissons, of course, the Nissan drivers didn't even get to stand on the podium on the day. They ended up getting kind of the second and third in the aftermath when Brock got the win. So you had the scenario where the winning car started 19th on the grid. The Glenn Seton, John Bauer, Skyline started 14th. The Fury and Shield car started 13th. The Jim Richards, Tony Longhurst, JPSM3, that finished 4th, started 11th. Gary Scott, Nakahiko, Nikkei, the Japanese driver in the Mitsubishi Starian, they finished 7th on the road, which became 5th later on. They started 22nd. You see a pattern forming here. The second JPS car with Robbie Francivik and Ludwig Finau, they started 21st. So you've got to go back to the 7th-placed car, Johnny Giacotto and Gianfranco Brancatelli, the first of the World Championship-registered cars to find a car that started in the top 10. That car started 5th on the grid and ended up finishing with 154 laps. So that's a scenario that I can never really see ever again where the top six cars in the race started outside the top 10 on the grid. Now records like that are made to be broken, but oh wow, it's just stunning stuff. What else sticks out from the 87 race? Well, the two Toyota cars, the two Corollas crashing at the top of the mountain in the wet together, was quite unbelievable. Wiped them out of dominating the class. In the end, it was the little tortoise Toyota Corolla that ended up winning the class, Bob Holden, Brian, Bate and Gary Wilmington, who finished last of the classified finishes 23rd in the end. They only did 123 laps, but that was enough to give them the class win because they were classified as finishes. The two crashed Corollas had actually completed 119 and 118 laps. So you could have had this very strange scenario. Well, you did have a scenario where the class winning car only completed a handful of laps more than the cars that had done. Well, many more laps up to that point, but that's just the way that it panned out. What a strange race. What an amazing race. What a great race. Well, was it a great race or was it just a wild race where so many things happen that you look back on it and go, well, we'll never see that ever happen again. There were stories or why for plenty of people. I mentioned before the two Dick Johnson Sierras, they were done within three laps. The second car would never cry at the wheel, crashed with Larry Perkins on the run up the hill into the cutting on lap three, and then the Dick Johnson car that he was sharing with Greg Hansford failed on lap four with diff failure. So miserable, miserable and very short and sharp. Bathurst for Dick and his team. Alan Moffat, of course, he'd won the world touring car round at Monza with John Harvey to start the year in the Rothman's Comet or the X, HDT Comet or that he bought in that fire sale after Brock's bust up with Holden. But by Bathurst, he'd elected not to go with the Comet or and did a deal to lease Andy Rouse's Sierra, brought the backing from ANZ Banks, Terry Tass and the Belgian driver, it was the third driver in that car. It only lasted 30 odd laps before the diff failed in that one, too. So plenty of big names out early. Of course, the zero five car of Brock and David Parsons, it was out. But the reality was, the top content in Commodore that day wasn't the mobile car. It was actually Alan Greis, the Bob Jane T. Mart's roadways car with he and wind Percy that wind had crashed in the lead up to the race. Remember that he hooked the right rear that McPherlemy Park got sideways, nose straight into the fence and a big repair job by that team to get that car back on the track for the Hardy's Hero shootout on Saturday. And then, of course, into the race on Sunday, they lasted 96 laps before I think it was an axle that took them out from memory. So many names, so many weird things, so many interesting faces and names and cars. I mean, Peter Janssen drove with Peter Fitzgerald. And of course, we sadly lost Fitzy very recently in Peter McCloud's car. So Peter, Peter and Peter. But of course, Peter McCloud had gone off to drive with Peter Brock's team and what a move that proved to be because he did that first stint in the number 10 car before he handed it over to Brock and Parsons. The guy that missed out was John Crook, because he was nominated to co-drive with McCloud in car 10. And McCloud was there because Neil Crompton couldn't drive the car. He didn't have the necessary license signatures in time to be permitted to have the right license to race in the Bathurst 1000. So that's just how it worked out. A little trivia fact for you. Now, I mentioned that this was the first year of the pace car, or safety cars, we call it today, being in play at Bathurst. How many times did the safety car go out at Bathurst in '87? Well, with all that wet weather and all the drama and some crashes, you would think quite a few. But going back, there was only twice that the safety car went out onto the track. The first time in the history of the race was because of the Caltech's Alpha Romeo, the Colin Bond car with Lucio Cesario at the wheel crashed in yeses. And that was the first cause of a safety car in the history of the Bathurst 1000. Here's the thing though, the pace car session for that period concluded when the pace car broke down on track. Only at Bathurst would such a thing occur. And of course, then the pace car came out again later on in the race when the two Toyotas crashed at the top of the hill. One man, more Fangio. The second crashed the BMW. I think Graham Bowell kept the Kiwi and the skyline was involved up there too. Absolute chaos, absolute carnage when that rain fell at the top of the hill. Now, it was also the first Bathurst 1000 start for a future winner in Mark Scafe. Remember, he was driving to Peter Jackson, Nissan Gazelle with Grant Jarrett. He cooked on the first lap, but they managed to get it going again. They finished 19th. And of course, that is the famous story of Scafe wearing Grant Jarrett's helmet in order to qualify Grant for the race because he hadn't been fast enough. So Scafe was sent out with a helmet swap to be able to get a time against his name, which has been admitted in the aftermath. A couple of disqualifications out of the '87 race. Trevor Crow and Inky Tullick, the Kiwi BMW, they got flung for their rear spoiler on their BMW. Murray Carter and Steve Masters and Skylon, they got flung because of the width of the tyres used on the Netcom Nissan Skyline. They had wider rear tyres, wet weather tyres than were approved. And that was when we started to see the telemetry. I mean, now it's commonplace to see what driver is doing what in the car on your TV screen with what gear they're in, how fast they're going, how much, how far they're on the throttle or the brake. That '87 race was the first time we saw that live in car telemetry on the TV screen as part of that Netcom system that was with that Skyline, which was in the broadcast. And you look back on it now and it was so cutting edge at the time. Now it's just part of the course. So amazing stuff from the '87 Bathurst Race. I could talk about it all day, but I won't. But again, we might do that another time, but it's the perfect one to look back on today on our RICO Rewind, October the 4th, 1987. Don't forget to ricofilters.com.au, whether it's for a regular service, you're prepping for your road trip, maybe to the Bathurst 1000, or looking for a filtration upgrade. Trust RICO to get you ready, ricofilters.com.au bringing the RICO Rewind to you in 2024. Right, I'm done. Hope you enjoy this look back at the '87 Great Race. I'll have another RICO Rewind for you very soon. The National Motor Racing Museum is a must-see if you're in the central west of New South Wales. It's on the outside of Murray's Corner at the famous Mount Panorama in Bathurst, and celebrates the rich history of Australian motorsport. There's famous cars, bikes, memorabilia, so much to take in, including the spectacular immersive room. It gives you an amazing taste at the speed, the sound, and the excitement of the mountain. The museums generally open six days a week and also during events, so visit their Facebook page or the museums Bathurst.com.au website for further details.
