KENT Youlden, a multiple Australian Production Car Champion, has passed away age 71 after a long battle with dementia.
Youlden, nicknamed ‘The Bear’ by dint of his beard (the full nickname was ‘Yogi Bear’), came to prominence amid the fierce production car racing war between Ford and Holden in the early 1990s.
His day job at Ford Australia, where he went from building bodyshells to managing the full process of the underbody build of cars as they came down the production line, meant it was fitting that Youlden brought the Falcon nameplate its first national title since the Group C touring car days.
CAMS made radical changes to the Group E production car category for 1990, banning the previously dominant turbocharged cars and capping the maximum number of engine cylinders at six. The moves instantly rendered the six-cylinder versions of Ford’s Falcon and Holden’s Commodore as the cars to beat.
Youlden, having anticipated such a ban, had the jump on many of his formerly turbo-mounted rivals. He initially joined the Group E ranks in the mid-1980s racing a V8 Commodore but switched in 1988 to an S-pack EA Falcon, using a car that had been one of Ford Australia’s prototypes.
Youlden claimed all the major production car silverware that season, winning a pair of rounds on the way to the national title, as well as the category’s Australian Grand Prix support race and the Winton 300 enduro, where he was joined by brother Brett as co-driver.
He backed up the championship victory with another in 1991, but the increasing homologation race saw Holden’s VP Commodore SS dominate the 1992 season while Ford played catchup with the mid-season introduction of the EB II Falcon SS. The season also marked the end of the production car racing boom, with both factories soon turning their attention to Australian touring car racing and its revitalised five-litre V8 formula.
Youlden had been in motorsport for two decades before his national title success.
His career started in the early 1970s in rallycross, earning heat wins at Calder in an FE Holden, before replacing it with a Mitsubishi Colt and going rallying proper. Mostly competing in Victorian events, Youlden posted impressive results aboard the little 1100cc Colt including second in class and 14th outright on the 1972 Alpine Rally.
Deciding the risks were too high in the forests, Youlden switched to tarmac in the mid-1970s and began racing in the Sports Sedan category, intitially in a fast Holden Torana purchased from Fernando D’Alberto, uncle of future Supercars and TCR racer Tony.
By the end of the decade, Youlden had upgraded to a fast Cortina, the bright red machine based around a brand-new bodyshell that he’d acquired through his connections at Ford and eventually fitted with an ex-Formula 5000 Chevrolet V8 engine. The Cortina also began his connection with Dowsett Engineering, which backed Youlden through his Sports Sedan days and into his championship-winning production car days.
Youlden also spearheaded Ford’s efforts in the Bathurst 12 Hour during the event’s initial early-1990s run as a production car race.
He shared a Ford Laser TX3 4WD Turbo with brother Brett and Group E rival Ken Douglas to second place in the inaugural event in 1991, and was on course for the same result a year later with Brett and touring car star Dick Johnson when a driveshaft failed in the final hour.
The Youlden brothers switched to a Falcon XR6 for the 1993 event and were rewarded with fifth place outright alongside Chris Muscat, although a class triumph was out of reach due to the Ford sedan slotting into the same engine capacity bracket as the Porsche 968CS and Honda NSX!
Although Youlden never received a proper crack in touring car racing – a one-off test with Dick Johnson Racing was the extent – he did make a host of starts in the Sandown 500.
The touring car enduro added production cars to bolster its grid in the early 1990s, and Youlden and Douglas finished fifth outright in the 1992 event aboard the latter’s regular Group E Falcon. The last of the combined races was in 1994, when he shared a Volvo 850 T-5 to 19th place with Dutch touring car star Jan Lammers.
Youlden was also a frontrunner in Group Nc racing during the 1990s, the historic racing class that was a forerunner to today’s Touring Car Masters category. His 350 HQ Monaro was one of the first cars built for the category and earnt plenty of wins in Youlden’s hands.
The family’s racing fortunes were soon being upheld by the next generation, supporting his son Luke Youlden, who went on to win the Bathurst 1000 in 2017, up through the ranks as Kent’s own career entered its twilight.
He continued to race into the 2000s and shared the racetrack with his son during the 2001 Australian GT Production Car Championship, where Kent piloted a Ford Falcon AU XR8 in Class C while Luke won Class E overall aboard a Holden Astra SRi. The pair also co-drove the Falcon in that year’s Sandown 500.
The V8 Sleuth team extends its condolences to Youlden’s wife Yvonne; children Luke, James, Clinton and Rebecca; and brothers Brett and Ray.
