The 1995 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title for 5.0 Litre Touring Cars complying with Group 3A regulations. The championship, which was the 36th

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 ...

, was contested over a ten rounds between February and August 1995.''1995 Championship Results'', Australian Motor Racing Year 1995, pages 278 to 281 The series was won by John Bowe driving a

Dick Johnson Racing Dick Johnson Racing (formerly DJR Team Penske), is Australia's oldest motor racing team competing in the Supercars Championship. The team currently fields the #11 and #17 Ford Mustang (sixth generation), Ford Mustang GTs for Anton de Pasqu ...

Ford EF Falcon The Ford Falcon (EF) was a full-size car that was produced by Ford Australia from 1994 to 1996. It was the fourth significantly updated iteration of the fifth generation of the Falcon and also included the Ford Fairmont (EF)—the luxury-oriented ...

Television Coverage

Channel 7's 1995 coverage was led by Mike Raymond for the final time before his retirement from full-time broadcasting and he was once again joined by Allan Moffat and Mark Oastler in the broadcast booth with Andy Raymond in pit-lane. The broadcast was again on same-day delay due to the network's coverage of the AFL across the nation.

Pre-season

The

and

Holden VR Commodore The Holden Commodore (VR) is an executive car which was produced by Holden from 1993 to 1995. It was the third iteration of the second generation of the Holden Commodore. The VR range included the luxury variants, Holden Commodore Berlina (VR) ...

were both homologated for competition. The changes were largely cosmetic, allowing teams to reskin their existing EB Falcons and VP Commodores. With no material gain in performance expected, many of the privateer teams elected to retain their cars in EB and VP trim. In January 1995 Dunlop, who supplied tyres to

Perkins Engineering Perkins Engineering was a team contesting the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series, operating as an active racing team between 1986 and 2008. From 2009 onwards, the involvement of Perkins Engineering in the championship wounded back into ...

and

Wayne Gardner Racing Wayne Gardner Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship from 1994 until 1999. History Formation The team was created to further the motor sport career of 1987 World Motorcycle Champion, Wa ...

as well as all of the privateer teams, had their factory in

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

destroyed in the

Great Hanshin earthquake The , or Kobe earthquake, occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46:53 JST (January 16 at 20:46:53 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region known as Hanshin. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and had ...

. While production was shifted to England, teams had to ration their tyre stocks. To help the situation,

Bridgestone is a Japanese multinational tire manufacturer founded in 1931 by Shojiro Ishibashi (1889–1976) in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. The name Bridgestone comes from a calque translation and transposition of , meaning 'stone bridge' in Japan ...

later relaxed its policy of only supplying contracted teams, providing tyres to

James Rosenberg Racing James Rosenberg Racing was a V8 Supercar racing team owned by South Australian agricultural business identity, James Rosenberg. The team was reformed in 2010 with Tim Slade as the team's driver after a toe-in-the water year working with Paul Mo ...

and

Romano Racing Romano Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in Australian V8 Supercar racing between 1995 and 2003. History Sports Cars Romano Racing had its roots in the 1980s when team principal Bap Romano raced in the Australian Sports ...

at the final round. Defending champion

Mark Skaife Mark Skaife (born 3 April 1967) is a retired Australian motor racing driver. Skaife is a five-time champion of the V8 Supercar Championship Series, including its predecessor, the Australian Touring Car Championship, as well as a six-time Bath ...

missed the opening round of the championship after sustaining injuries in a testing accident ahead of the

Winfield Triple Challenge Sydney Motorsport Park (known until May 2012 as Eastern Creek International Raceway) is a motorsport circuit located on Brabham Drive, Eastern Creek (40-kilometres west of the Sydney CBD), New South Wales, Australia, adjacent to the Western ...

Eastern Creek Eastern Creek is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Eastern Creek is located west of the Sydney central business district, in the Blacktown local government area and is part of the Greater Western Sydney regi ...

that destroyed a

Gibson Motorsport Gibson Motorsport was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship from 1981 until 2003, though the team had its roots in Gibson's "Road & Track" team which ran a series of Ford Falcon GTHOs in Serie ...

VR Commodore.

Teams and drivers

;Movements *Greg Crick, having severed his relationship with Pinnacle Motorsport, purchased

Larry Perkins Larry Clifton Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a former racing driver and V8 Supercar team owner from Australia. Biography Early years Growing up on a farm in Cowangie in the Mallee region of Victoria, Larry, the son of racing driver Eddi ...

' 1994 VP Commodore, he would only contest the first two rounds, later selling the car to

M3 Motorsport M3 Motorsport was an Australian motor racing team that competed in Australian touring car racing between 1989 and 2003. History M3 Motorsport was founded by Sydney club racers John Cotter and Peter Doulman when they purchased a pair of ex ...

* Daily Planet Racing switched manufacturers, selling its VP Commodore and purchasing a

EB Falcon ;Arrivals / returnees *Alcair Racing entered the series with David Attard driving Paul Morris' 1994 VP Commodore, contesting all rounds *

entered the series with Mark Poole driving the 1993 Bathurst 1000 winning VP Commodore purchased from Daily Planet Racing *

Larkham Motor Sport Larkham Motor Sport was a motorsport team contesting the V8 Supercar Championship between 1995 and 2005. History Larkham Motor Sport was formed in 1990 with the intent of furthering Mark Larkham's career after he won the 1989 Australian Formu ...

entered the series with

Mark Larkham Mark "Larko" Larkham (born 29 December 1963 in Griffith) is a retired Australian racing driver, former racing team owner and television commentator. Open wheelers Mark Larkham's first impressions on the national racing spotlight was finishing ...

debuting an EF Falcon at round 3 *

Longhurst Racing Longhurst Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the V8 Supercar series between 1995 and 1999. History At the end of 1994, Tony Longhurst sold his share in LoGaMo Racing, the team he had established in 1988 with Frank Ga ...

entered the series after the shareholders in

LoGaMo Racing LoGaMo Racing, also known as Tony Longhurst Racing, was an Australian motor racing team that competed in Australian touring car racing between 1988 and 1994. The team was initially a collaboration between Tony Longhurst and Frank Gardner, wit ...

decided to go in separate directions. Frank Gardner and Terry Morris wanted to compete in the

Australian Super Touring Championship The Australian Super Touring Championship (formerly known as the Australian 2.0 Litre Touring Car Championship) was a CAMS-sanctioned national motor racing title for Super Touring Cars. History Super Touring was introduced into Australia in 1993 ...

as the factory BMW team while

Tony Longhurst Anthony Lawrence Longhurst (born 1 October 1957 in Sydney) is an Australian racing driver and former Australian Champion water skier. He is most noted for his career in the Australian Touring Car Championship and V8 Supercar series. Longhurst is ...

wanted to remain in the V8 series. As a result, Gardner and Morris bought out Longhurst's share in Logamo, with Longhurst forming a new team to race an EF Falcon. *

Phil Ward Racing Phil Ward Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in touring car racing between 1987 and 1995. The race team would later become the organisation that created and ran the Aussie Racing Cars series. History After racing for a ...

competed in a few rounds with an ex Advantage Racing VP Commodore, Phil Ward returning to the championship having last competed in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

* Pinnacle Motorsport signed

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 o ...

for what was supposed to be his first full season since

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

, however after the team missed a couple of rounds, the arrangement had been terminated by the last round where Grice drove a third

Glenn Seton Racing Glenn Seton Racing was an Australian motor racing team which competed in the V8 Supercars Championship Series between 1989 and 2002. History Group A At the end of 1988, Philip Morris were dissatisfied with the level of signage it was offered ...

entry *

entered the series with Paul Romano driving

's 1994 VP Commodore, contesting all rounds ;Departures *

withdrew from the series to concentrate on the

, thus Paul Morris did not compete *1994 Privateer's Champion Bob Jones did not defend his crown after major sponsor

Ampol Ampol Limited is an Australian petroleum company headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales. Ampol is the largest transport energy distributor and retailer in Australia, with more than 1,900 Ampol-branded stations across the country . It also ope ...

withdrew The following drivers and teams competed in the 1995 Australian Touring Car Championship:

Race calendar

The championship was contested over a ten-round series. Each round featured a "Peter Jackson Dash", a short sprint race which was restricted to the top ten cars from qualifying, and two main races which were open to all competitors. Unlike previous seasons, the dash did not set the grid order for the main races. The

Amaroo Park Amaroo Park Raceway was a motor racing circuit located in Annangrove, New South Wales, in the present-day north-western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Opened in 1967, the road circuit served as a venue for a variety of competitions including t ...

round was replaced by a round at

Mount Panorama Mount Panorama Circuit is a motor racing track located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is situated on Mount Panorama (Wahluu) and is best known as the home of the Bathurst 1000 motor race held each October, and the Bathurst 12 Hour ...

which held an ATCC round for the first time since

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

Points system

* Championship points were awarded on a 3-2-1 basis for the first three places in the Peter Jackson Dash at each round.''What's the point'', Official Programme, Mallala, 9 July 1995, page 73 * One bonus championship point was awarded for each position gained & held by a driver during the Peter Jackson Dash at each round. * Championship points were awarded on a 20-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 basis for the first ten places in each of the two main races at each round.

Results

Rounds were won by John Bowe (4),

Glenn Seton Glenn Seton (born 5 May 1965) is an Australian racing driver. He won the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1993 and 1997 while driving for his own team. Although he never won the Bathurst 1000 like his father Barry did in 1965, Glenn star ...

(4),

(1) and

(1). Going into the final round Bowe, Seton and

Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, a ...

were in contention with Bowe prevailing.

Championship standings

Note: Race 1 at the Phillip Island round was stopped before full race distance due to multiple accidents brought about by heavy rain, and only half points were awarded.

Privateers Cup

The Motorsport News / Dunlop Privateers Cup was won by David Attard.''Champion effort'', Australian Motor Racing Year 1995, pages 146 to 149

References

External links

Official V8 Supercar site
{{Australian Touring Car Racing Australian Touring Car Championship seasons

Touring Cars Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition with heavily modified road-going cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not mo ...