The 1983 Australian GT Championship was a 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 for cars complying with

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''Conditions for Australian Titles'', 1983 CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, pages 91 to 94 for GT cars, 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. It was the sixth Australian GT Championship.''Australian Titles'', docs.cams.com.au
As archived at www.webcitation.org on 16 July 2014 The championship was won by Rusty French, driving a

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 ( ...

.Barry Catford, ''Australian GT Championship'', Australian Motor Racing Yearbook, 1983/84, pages 218 to 231

Championship review

1982 Australian GT Championship The 1982 Australian GT Championship was a CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title open to Group D GT cars and Group B Sports Sedans. It was the fifth Australian GT Championship, the first to be awarded since 1963 and the first to be conte ...

winner Alan Jones moved back to

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

in 1983 and did not defend his title. His main opposition from 1982 returned, including, Rusty French in the ex-Jones

sponsored by John Sands, along with new team-mate Alan Browne in the ex-French 935. Twice former Australian Sports Sedan Champion Tony Edmondson fronted again in the Don Elliot owned, 5.0L Chevrolet powered,

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 ...

(upgraded to a 6.0L Chev during the year), while touring car driver

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, al ...

again was to drive the Bob Jane owned 6.0L Chevrolet Monza. Also competing were the Frank Gardner run

JPS Team BMW JPS Team BMW is a former Australian motor racing team that ran from 1981–1987. The team's main focus was touring car racing but also ran in sports sedans and GT cars as well. The team, under the management of former British Touring Car Cham ...

with Jim Richards driving the team's turbocharged BMW 318i that had originally been driven by Allan Grice, Adelaide based John Briggs who had sold his Monza and was running an ex-JPS BMW 318i, and Peter Fitzgerald in his 3.2L

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. The expected challenge from the twin-turbo Chevrolet V8 powered Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC of Bryan Thompson failed to eventuate until late in the series as the car was plagued by unreliability. The third round of the championship at the Adelaide International Raceway was the scene of a start line accident after the Chevrolet Monza of

snapped left off the line and speared into the concrete wall before bouncing back in front of the field. With nowhere to go and little time to react, others, led by Jim Richards crashed into Brock, with the ex-Jim Richards

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 ...

of Tony Hubbard ending up on top of the pile and the

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of Queensland's Mark Trenoweth on the bottom. Reports varied from the Jane camp about the cause of the crash. Peter Brock maintained that the car had broken a

CV joint Constant-velocity joints (also known as homokinetic or CV joints) are mechanical joints which allow a drive shaft to transmit power through a variable angle, at constant rotational speed, without an appreciable increase in friction or Backlash (e ...

while chief mechanic Pat Purcell believed the cause was actually Brock just losing control when the car found sudden grip, claiming that nothing had broken on the car before the crash. At least one third of the field was eliminated in the crash. Following the accident, neither the Monza nor the JPS BMW were raced until November at the

1983 Australian Grand Prix The 1983 Australian Grand Prix was a race for Australian Formula 1 cars held at Calder Park Raceway on 13 November 1983. It was the forty eighth Australian Grand Prix and the fourth to be held at Calder. The race was also the sixth and final ro ...

at Calder Park in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

in the Sports Car / GT Challenge support races.1983 AGP Sport Sedan/GT Challenge
/ref> Rusty French won his first Australian GT Championship with a consistent run over the six round series to score 40 points, never finishing outside of the top three positions in any round and winning Round 3 in Adelaide and the sixth and final round at

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. He was also the only driver in the entire field who finished (or entered) every round of the series. Jim Richards finished second in the championship with 18 points, despite competing in only the first two rounds at

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and Sandown, winning both convincingly, though he was challenged by French at Sandown who used the superior power of his Porsche to stay with the BMW on Sandown's long straights. The

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and

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Australian Sports Sedan Champion Tony Edmondson finished equal second with Richards in the championship. Like Richards, Edmondson won two rounds with victory at Round 4 at Calder and Round 5 at Winton. Unlike Richards, Edmondson did enter other rounds of the championship. His was one of the cars damaged in the start line crash at the Adelaide round. Alan Browne was classified fourth in the championship in his Porsche 935, scoring 13 points. As a reward for driving his Porsche 935 to the championship win, French was flown to

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

in 1984 by

Porsche Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see #Pronunciation, below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany ...

as one of their award winners for 1983. This also secured him a drive with German

World Endurance Championship World Endurance Championship may refer to: * FIA World Endurance Championship, an auto racing series held since 2012 * World Sportscar Championship, an auto racing series which used the title World Endurance Championship from 1981 to 1985 * Endura ...

team

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at the

1984 24 Hours of Le Mans The 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 52nd Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 16 – 17 June 1984. It was also the third round of the 1984 World Endurance Championship. The works Rothmans Porsche team boycotted the 1984 Le Mans rac ...

driving a

Porsche 956 The Porsche 956 was a Group C sports-prototype racing car designed by Norbert Singer and built by Porsche in 1982 for the FIA World Sportscar Championship. It was later upgraded to the 956B in 1984. In 1983, driven by Stefan Bellof, this car est ...

B. Alongside Englishmen

Tiff Needell Timothy "Tiff" Needell (born 29 October 1951 in Havant, Hampshire) is a British racing driver and television presenter. He is a presenter of '' Lovecars'', and formerly served as co-presenter of ''Top Gear'' and ''Fifth Gear''. Biography Need ...

and David Sutherland, French finished 9th outright in the 24-hour classic.

Schedule

Points system

Points were awarded on a 9-6-4-3-2-1 basis for the first six places at each round. All rounds were counted towards the championship.

Results

References

{{Australian GT Championship years Australian GT Championship GT Championship