The 1984 Australian GT Championship was an CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title and was the seventh

Australian GT Championship The Australian GT Championship is a 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 title was contested over a single race a ...

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 layout, front-engine, rear-wh ...

cars complying with CAMS Group D regulations with Group B Sports Sedans 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, Porsche Carrera RSR,

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, Porsche 935, BMW 318i Turbo, Holden Commodore 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. 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 piston engine with three cylinders on each side of a central crankshaft. The most common type of flat-six engine is the boxer-six engine, where each pair of opposed cy ...

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

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 u ...

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 rece ...

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 o ...

(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 , establishe ...

er Mark Trenoweth driving the ex- John McCormack Jaguar XJ-S 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 Porsche Carrera RSR. 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 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 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 in between. Together with Shanklin, Sandown forms a built-up area of ...

, only Grice and Trenoweth could win the championship, but with the Sydney 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 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 so ...

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