WHAT is now known as Supercars made its debut as a category on the Gold Coast streets in 1994, but that wasn’t the first time that touring cars raced at the event.
The early years of Gold Coast Indy ran without Motorsport Australia-backed categories amid a political war between the FIA and IndyCar sanctioning body CART over the latter’s right to race on a road course outside of North America, as touched on in this week’s Gold Coast street race-themed edition of the V8 Sleuth Podcast polished by Bowden’s Own.
Organisers turned to Bob Jane’s NASCAR and AUSCAR categories to fill the bill for the inaugural running in 1991, along with HQ Holdens, Porsches and Superkarts plus a celebrity race.
With political tensions cooling for the 1992 event, a category with the generic name of Sports and GTs was added to the support card.
The field was a real mixed grill of impressive machinery. Australian Sports Sedans made up the bulk of the grid, joined by a contingent of New Zealand TraNZam cars, as well as GT and Porsche Cup cars, but Group A Touring Cars were also eligible for the class.
Benson & Hedges Racing entered its full fleet of BMW M3s, with two B&H-backed cars for Tony Longhurst and Alan Jones plus the white Performance Driving Centre machine of then-touring car rookie Paul Morris.
“The sports cars will have the power on us but we have a more refined package; they’ll get away from us down the straights but we’ll catch them in the corners,” Longhurst said prior to the event.
“Like any street circuit, if you make a mistake you go straight into the wall. I think that will be on the minds of the big boys as they line up for the corners and that’s where we’ll get by them.”
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Other Group A entries included the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworths of Kevin Waldock, Brian Bolwell and Bryan Sala, and a host of Holden Commodore privateers.
While the little M3s employed the same giant-killer act they’d perfected against the turbo Fords and Nissans in the Australian Touring Car Championship, they were ultimately outmatched in the 10-lap sprint races against the lightweight, V8-engined Sports Sedan elite.
But, as the pic of Longhurst flying over the beach chicane kerbs at the top of this story demonstrates, it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
Longhurst surged from a lowly grid position to nab third place in the Saturday race, aggressively flying over the kerbs at the chicanes. He then briefly ran second on the opening lap of the Sunday race, only to crash out moments later.
The Gold Coast cameo proved an expensive one for the B&H squad, as Jones crashed his M3 in the closing stages of the Sunday race when he slid off on a patch of oil.
Morris’ was the only M3 that emerged unscathed, although he too was an early retirement from the Sunday race with a broken fuel pump.
That left Waldock as the best of the Group A runners, only for his race to end in the gravel at the first chicane after a bump from the Porsche 935 of Rusty French.
For the record, then-reigning Australian Sports Sedan Champion Greg Crick won the Saturday race in his Honda Prelude and led the Sunday race until a rear upright failure at half-distance.
That left Brian Smith aboard the Ricciardello Alfa to fend off Kerry Baily’s Toyota Supra, the Western Australian winning the race by half a carlength.
