Australian Stock Car Auto Racing

rdf:langString Australian Stock Car Auto Racing

rdf:langString AUSCAR (Australian Stock Car Auto Racing) was an auto racing sanctioning body owned by Bob Jane, which ran American-style Superspeedway racing in Australia. The initial AUSCAR venue was the 1.801 km (1.119 mi), high-banked (24°) Calder Park Thunderdome Superspeedway in Melbourne, but over time the series expanded to include the Jane owned 1/2 mile (805 metre) Speedway Super Bowl at the eastern end of Adelaide International Raceway which first saw AUSCAR racing in 1990 (the Super Bowl was only other paved oval circuit in Australia with only 7° banking in the corners making it essentially a traditional flat track), the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit, and eventually several Australian road racing circuits including Calder Park's road course and the Oran Park Raceway in Sydney where racing was held under lights on the short version of the circuit. In the early 1990s, Jane and television station Channel 7 announced plans to turn the old Granville Showground trotting track which circled the Parramatta Speedway in Sydney into a paved, banked 1/2 mile track, but this did not happen. Three categories of racing car were developed to run on the Australian circuits: * NASCAR: imported and locally developed versions of the American race cars. Engines were 6.0L V8s * AUSCAR: down spec-ed cars, closer to production specification with a control road tyre, The category comprised the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon. After 1990/91, engines were restricted to 5.0L V8s. * Sportsman: lower specification again, cheaper to buy or build and older cars, and some former AUSCARs. Like AUSCAR, the category comprised the Commodore and Falcon. Engine restrictions saw Holdens use the 4.2L 253 V8 and Fords use de-tuned 5.0L 302 V8s. Other categories, such as the HQs, a relatively cheap category based on the Holden HQ Kingswood powered by the 3.3L Holden red motor, were also popular at the Calder Park Thunderdome (as the HQs were Australian-made cars, like the AUSCARs they raced clockwise on the ovals). Another category was based on the American dirt track category known as Legends (similar in appearance, but unrelated to Aussie Racing Cars), since disappeared from circuit racing. Open-wheel cars such as Formula Vee also raced on occasion at the Thunderdome as a support to the NASCAR / AUSCAR races, as did the Dirt track racing Grand Nationals for a few meetings in 1990.