MENTION Amaroo Park Raceway to Sydney race fans and instantly they’ll be able to tell you countless tales of days spent at the popular Annangrove 1.94-kilometre circuit.
The venue played host to all sorts of categories and championship rounds, including rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship and, on this day – February 27 – back in 1994 it hosted the ATCC for the final time.
Mark Skaife was in dominant form in his Winfield-backed Gibson Motorsport Commodore VP, claiming pole position via victory in the Peter Jackson Dash for Cash and then two race wins in the two Sunday afternoon races.
The 1992 champion’s pathway to his second crown started with this dominant performance at Amaroo, though he wasn’t the only one claiming the headlines that day.
Reigning champion Glenn Seton finished second in both races to claim second for the day, but it was the third driver on the podium that garnered plenty of cheers – Peter Brock.
In his first drive for the Holden Racing Team (and therefore first drive of a factory-backed Holden since early 1987), ‘PB’ finished fifth in Race 1 and made further ground to be third in the final race and grab the final spot on the podium.
The 1994 Amaroo round marked the racing debut of the Coca-Cola-backed Wayne Gardner Racing with a pair of Commodores for Gardner and Neil Crompton.
The 1987 World Motorcycle Champion had bought out Bob Forbes Racing and created WGR and was best of the team’s cars by finishing 11th and 10th in the races.
Larry Perkins also didn’t have the best of days, copping a $2000 fine for contact with Alan Jones in Race 2.
“I don’t have a reputation for bending other people’s cars – I went through the whole of last year without getting involved in any of the fracas – and, believe me, if I’d wanted to knock him (Jones) off I would have,” Perkins fumed to Motorsport News afterwards.
Paul Morris and Tony Longhurst – stars for BMW in the two-litre series – made their V8 debuts in a pair of Perkins-built Commodores among the 24-car field.
Amaroo Park carried on for another few years until hosting its final race meeting in 1998 before being closed and the land turned into housing and roads.
This story is the latest in our series of Ryco Rewind stories as we take a look back through Australian motorsport history and explore the great races, drivers and cars from the past on the relevant anniversary.
