The 1984 Australian GT Championship was an CAMS sanctioned

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n motor racing title and was the seventh

Australian GT Championship The Australian GT Championship is a Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, CAMS-sanctioned national title for drivers of GT cars, held annually from 1960 to 1963, from 1982 to 1985 and from 2005. Each championship up to and including the 1963 ...

to be awarded.CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, 1984. pages 88–91 It was a series open to

grand tourer A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either ...

cars complying with CAMS

Group D Group D may refer to: * FIA Group D - International Formula racing cars: ** Formula Two ** Formula Three ** Formula 3000 * One of six or eight groups of four teams competing at the FIFA World Cup ** 2022 FIFA World Cup Group D ** 2018 FIFA World ...

regulations with

Group B Sports Sedans A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...

competing by invitation. The series was contested over six rounds from 15 April to 9 September 1984. Some of the cars that competed in the series included the

Chevrolet Monza The Chevrolet Monza is a subcompact automobile produced by Chevrolet for the 1975 through 1980 model years. The Monza is based on the Chevrolet Vega, sharing its wheelbase, width, and standard inline-four engine. The car was designed to accommoda ...

Jaguar XJ-S The Jaguar XJ-S (later called XJS) is a luxury grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British car manufacturer Jaguar Cars from 1975 to 1996, in coupé, fixed-profile and full convertible bodystyles. There were three distinct iterations, ...

Porsche Carrera RSR The original Porsche 911 (pronounced ''nine eleven'', german: Neunelfer) is a luxury sports car made by Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany. A prototype of the famous, distinctive, and durable design was shown to the public in autumn 1963. P ...

Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC The Mercedes-Benz R107 and C107 are sports cars which were produced by Mercedes-Benz from 1971 until 1989, being the second longest single series ever produced by the automaker after the G-Class. They were sold under the SL (R107) and SLC (C107 ...

Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV The Alfa Romeo Alfetta (Type 116) is a front-engine, five-passenger sedan and fastback coupé manufactured and marketed by Alfa Romeo from 1972 to 1987 with a production total over 400,000. The Alfetta was noted for the rear position of its ...

Porsche 935 The Porsche 935 was a race car developed and manufactured by German automaker Porsche. Introduced in 1976 as the factory racing version of the Porsche 930, 911 (930) Turbo and prepared for Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA-Group 5 ( ...

, BMW 318i Turbo,

Holden Commodore The Holden Commodore is a full-size car that was sold by Holden from 1978 to 2020. It was manufactured from 1978 to 2017 in Australia and from 1979 to 1990 in New Zealand, with production of the locally manufactured versions in Australia endin ...

and

Holden Monaro The Holden Monaro ( ) is a rear-wheel drive coupé manufactured by General Motors Holden in Australia from 1968 to 1975 and later reintroduced from 2001 to 2005. It was also manufactured as a 4-door sedan from 1973 to 1977. Three generations of ...

and

Ford Falcon Ford Falcon is an automobile nameplate applied to several vehicles worldwide. * Ford Falcon (North America), an automobile produced by Ford from 1960 to 1970. * Ford Falcon (Argentina), a car built by Ford Argentina from 1962 until 1991. * Fo ...

. Other than the 5.6L

V12 V12 or V-12 may refer to: Aircraft * Mil V-12, a Soviet heavy lift helicopter * Pilatus OV-12, a planned American military utility aircraft * Rockwell XFV-12, an American experimental aircraft project * Škoda-Kauba V12, a Czechoslovak experim ...

Jaguar, the turbo Porsche 935 and BMW 318i and the 3.2L

Flat-6 A flat-six engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-six, is a six-cylinder Internal combustion engine#Reciprocating engines, piston engine with three cylinders on each side of a central crankshaft. The most common type of flat-six engine is th ...

Porsche RSR, most of the top cars were powered by 5.0L or 6.0L

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...

s, though Bryan Thompson's Mercedes was powered by a

twin turbo Twin-turbo (not to be confused with a twincharger setup, which is a combination of a supercharger and a turbocharger) refers to an engine in which two turbochargers work in tandem to compress the intake fuel/air mixture (or intake air, in the case ...

, 4.2L Chevrolet V8.

Australian Touring Car Championship The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the trophy ...

and

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most recen ...

regular

Allan Grice Allan Maxwell Grice (born 21 October 1942), known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000 (1986 and 1990), and as a privateer driver of ...

(probably the only full-time professional driver in the field), won the series driving the ex-

Bob Jane Robert Frederick Jane (18 December 1929 – 28 September 2018) was an Australian race car driver and prominent entrepreneur and business tycoon. A four-time winner of the Armstrong 500, the race that became the prestigious Bathurst 1000 and a ...

6.0L

from

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

er Mark Trenoweth driving the ex- John McCormack

and

Series Production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...

ace Peter Fitzgerald in his

. Fitzgerald, the only driver other than Grice to win a race in the championship*, did not enter the first two races of the series at

Lakeside Lakeside or Lake Side may refer to: Places Australia * Lakeside College, Pakenham, Victoria * Lakeside Joondalup Shopping City, Joondalup, Western Australia * Lakeside, near Reservoir, Victoria * Lakeside International Raceway, Pine Rivers, Quee ...

and

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, thus his win at Calder was his first points for the season. Going into the last round of the series at the then new 3.9 km (2.4 mi) International circuit at

Sandown Sandown is a seaside resort and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom with the resort of Shanklin to the south and the settlement of Lake, Isle of Wight, Lake in between. Together ...

, only Grice and Trenoweth could win the championship, but with the

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

based driver winning both heats and the Queenslander only finishing 4th and 3rd, the title was Grice's. It was Grice's third (and ultimately last) national title win after also capturing the

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...

and

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

Australian Sports Sedan Championship The National Series for Sports Sedans, formerly the Australian Sports Sedan Championship, is a CAMS sanctioned national motor racing title for drivers of cars complying with Australian Sports Sedan regulations. This class, essentially a silhou ...

s (the SS Championship was merged into the GT Championship in 1982). The expected challenge from dual Australian Sports Sedan champion Tony Edmonson in the Don Elliot owned Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV Chevrolet (upgraded from 5.0 to 6.0L) was hamstrung by reliability problems with the Chevrolet V8. On occasion Edmonson showed the speed to match Grice and indeed set the category lap record at Winton (which still stands as of 2016) while leading Grice in the first heat, but he rarely finished a race due to engine dramas. Despite his final winning margin being only 12.5 points, Grice and the Monza dominated the series. He sat on pole position for every round, his biggest pole margin over the field being a full 4 seconds at Sandown, and not only did he win all bar one race in the championship he also set the fastest lap for every race except for the first heat in the first round at Lakeside and the first heat of the last round at Sandown. Bryan Thompson in his Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC Chev V8 was credited with the fastest race lap in both races (the Mercedes reportedly had over compared to the Monza's , but was not as reliable, often retiring with turbo failure). ''* Fitzgerald won at Calder after race leader Grice retired with just over a lap remaining with no fuel pressure. Grice held an eight second lead at the time of his retirement. Bryan Thompson suffered turbocharger failure in the Mercedes-Benz on the warmup lap and took over Tino Leo's Holden Monaro to finish 9th.''

Schedule

Results

Points were awarded on a 30-27-24-21-19-17-15-14-13-12 basis to the top ten outright finishers in each round. For rounds that featured two heats, the points were halved for each heat. All scores counted towards the championship. Only the top 20 drivers are listed.

References

External links

Australian Titles
Retrieved from CAMS Online Manual of Motor Sport on 2008-7-28

Retrieved from Autopics on 2008-7-28 {{Australian GT Championship years Australian GT Championship GT Championship

Schedule

Results

References

Further reading

External links