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The winning Stefan Bellof/Derek Bell Porsche 956 cruises along the Princes Highway at Noble Park, Melbourne in December 1984…

Some of the most amazing shots during the first of Sandown’s two abortive WEC rounds in 1984 and 1988 were away from the track in Melbourne’s southern suburbs. A bright spark, probably Porsche Cars Australia chief Allan Hamilton – an elite level racer himself – thought it would be a great idea to drive three of the four works-956s the five or so kilometres from PCA’s workshop in Noble Park to Sandown, also on the Princes Highway.

No cops, no organisation, just let’s go with a Kombi strategically placed to allow the race-gunterwagens to make the u-turn to head west back towards town. Luvvit!

The World Endurance Championship broadened its global horizons with a maiden visit to Australia for the 11th and final round of the championship. Sandown Park is a combined horse and car racing facility. Designed as such, the track 30km from Melbourne’s CBD opened and first hosted an international event in March 1962. Jack Brabham won that Formule Libre Sandown Park International in a Cooper T55 Climax 2.7 from the Cooper T53 Climax 2.7s of John Surtees and Bruce McLaren. See here: https://primotipo.com/2016/01/27/chucks-t-bird/

In order to meet FIA minimum track length requirements to host international events, Sandown grew from a fast-flowing 1.9 miles to a fucked-up 2.4 miles, the increase in lap distance achieved within the existing footprint by the addition of a pissant 500 metre infield loop that pleased no-one. A spend of about $A2 million included the relocation of the pits and new pit garages.

The Light Car Club of Australia – easily the most successful car club in Australia, its origins going right back to November 5, 1924 (originally called the Victorian Light Car Club), well before the first Australian Grand Prix was held at Goulburn in January 1927, were the lessors of the Sandown Park motor racing facilities – signed a three-year contract with the FIA. Expectations were high, the LCCA’s spreadsheet jockeys anticipated/speculated/prayed for 40,000 folks to pass through the gates on race day…that didn’t happen and the financial devastation wrought upon this wonderful club by a Boy-Scout Board is a story for another time.

While hyped as Australia’s first World Championship motor race – it was – the 1964-75 Tasman Cup was of far greater stature, or importance regionally at least, with Sandown hosting the Melbourne Tasman round each year.

None the less the prospect of seeing Sir Jack Brabham, Alan Jones and Vern Schuppan in ‘spectacular Le Mans Porsches’ was eagerly awaited by local race fans. All eyes were on German wunderkind Stefan Bellof in his battle with fellow Deutschlander and works-Porsche-pilot, Jochen Mass for the WEC Drivers’ Championship.

Bellof sizzled with absolute pace – he was Germany’s star – and had the same fierce burning desire of Gilles Villeneuve to be the quickest in every session. Sadly, both died very violently well before their time.

“I come to Australia to win this race together with Derek,” said championship leader Stefan, “and the chance is good. We stay on the pole position, but it’s a 1000km race and it’s a long distance. We have a lot of slower cars here and so we have to go very careful.”

The young F1 pilot – his Grand Prix ride was aboard a Tyrrell Ford together with Martin Brundle – clipped a kerb and boofed the barriers. Undeterred, he returned on Saturday and popped the car on pole in very hot conditions. Mass was alongside him on the front row, seven tenths slower. “It is particularly unpleasant for me, said Jochen, “because I can only win, and if Bellof comes second he’s still won.”

Porsche entered two extra cars for Jones/Schuppan and Jack Brabham, who shared the Porsche camera-car with young F3 thruster and soon Lotus F1 driver, Johnny Dumfries. Jones was the pacesetter, despite little 956 experience. “It’s fantastic to see a world championship event here in Australia,” reflected an upbeat Jones. “It means I don’t have to travel so far from home to be in it for a start!”

‘Black Jack’ had done some Australian Group C touring car racing in the late 1970s, and enjoyed the Porsche experience. “It’s certainly a lot faster than anything I’ve ever driven before. It’s the first time I’ve driven a car with ground effects too, which is very interesting. I’ve read a lot about the Porsches and the opportunity now to drive one and just see how it goes is very, very good.”

After being tapped up the chuff by another car, they weren’t classified in the race, but Brabham, driving with an open-face Bell helmet enjoyed his time behind the wheel.

Lancia didn’t make the trip to Australia as our race was a round of the WEC Drivers Championship but not the FIA World Endurance Championship for makes, a shame given the size of Australia’s Italian diaspora, but the top Porsche privateers made the long trip south.

John Fitzpatrick was back after missing Fuji, with Thierry Boutsen qualifying the lead Skoal Bandit car fourth. The patriotic Team Australia effort returned on home ground, this time commandeering Fitz’s 962. At the wheel were former Australian Touring Car and Rally Champion, Colin Bond and Andrew Miedecke, at that time a leading Ralt RT4 mounted Formula Pacific racer.

Mulsanne Memories wrote that “Kremer entered the pink Sega-backed 956B for Manfred Winkelhock/Rusty French (fifth) and a white, all-South African crewed 956 for Sarel van der Merwe/George Fouche. Richard Lloyd’s 956 GTi was in amongst this pack, as were Ludwig and Pescarolo in Joest’s 956B. A troubled race, which included punctures aplenty, a black flag, and a fractured brake pipe, meant the Le Mans winners could do no better than seventh, however. A couple of ageing cars — Chuck Kendall’s IMSA Lola T600 and Kees Kroesemeijer’s Kremer CK5 — rounded out the C1 field.”

A strong nine-car C2 field raced in Australia, but Gordon Spice and Ray Bellm again crushed the field taking their fifth win of the year in their Tiga CG84 DFL 3.3. Not that it was easy. Spice spun in the first hour, falling some way behind the ferocious Alba/Gebhardt lead battle. Carlo Facetti went away with fading brakes, and Spice clawed his way back past the Gebhardt before driving away for an eight-lap victory. Gunter Gebhardt had a second, all-female entry for Margie-Smith Haas, Australian Sue Ransom and French F3 star Kathy Muller, which finished the race.

In order to help drag in the local punters – whose most popular diet was V8 touring cars – the LCCA included an Australian Car class for cars that raced in the Australian GT (Group B Sports Sedans and Group D GT cars), and Sports Car (Group A) Championships.

The FIA permitted five of these cars to race, the quickest of which was the Barry Lock/Kaditcha Cars Kaditcha K583/Romano Ford DFL 3.9 sports-prototype raced by multiple Australian Gold Star Champion, Alf Costanzo and car owner, Bap Romano. Alfie’s fastest lap was a 1:38.4 – 13th – despite persistent understeer caused by the 70kg of ballast the car had to carry.

Frank Gardner ran the factory BMW race program in Australia for well over a decade, the team fielded a beautiful black John Player Special-sponsored BMW 320i sports-sedan driven by touring car ace Jim Richards and Tony Longhurst. The quickest of our sports sedans at the time was the ex-Bob Jane, Pat Purcell built Chevrolet Monza raced at Sandown by touring car specialists Allan Grice, Dick Johnson and Ron Harrop. Another superbly built sports sedan was the Peter Fowler built, Bryan Thompson owned 700-900bhp Mercedes Benz 450SLC Chev 4.2 twin-turbo, Brad Jones shared the wheel with Thompson.

Race…

29 cars set off on as the parade lap in hot conditions with the 1980 World Champ Jones the bolter – showing the sportscar-boys how its done, sliding down the inside at Shell to snatch the lead. As the field completed the first lap Jochen Mass was missing, having spun on oil dumped at the final chicane by Nick Faure’s expiring Porsche 930 just before the start. Jochen re-joined in 15th.

As Mass tore through the mid-field, Bellof was harassing Jones, slipping past on Pissant Loop to take the lead. Bellof pulled away, leaving AJ in the clutches of Boutsen’s 956, finally making it past Jones when he ran wide at the final corner. Behind the top three, Jan Lammers led Manfred Winkelhock, and Klaus Ludwig ran fourth to sixth.

Mass was reeling the top-order in, passing Lammers, then Jones for third spot on lap 31. As cars pitted for their first stops, Bellof led Boutsen by 20 seconds and Mass by 35.

Derek Bell took over the lead car from Bellof, then a slow stop from the Fitzpatrick crew meant that Jacky Ickx emerged from the pits aboard the #1 Rothmans Porsche in second place, just ahead of David Hobbs – who had last raced a McLaren M22 Chev F5000 car at Sandown in 1972 – in for Boutsen. Hobbs re-took second when Ickx skated wide and ran off the circuit at a corner; the newish track surface was breaking up a bit, with cars getting off-line, skating wide and bouncing through the dust.

Then the cards were all thrown up in the air, when when broken suspension pitched Group C2 debutant Jens Winther’s 3.5-litre BMW 3.5-litre six-cylinder engined URD into the pit wall, bringing out the pace car and bunching up the field.

At the restart, Hobbs grabbed the lead from Bell despite bodywork hanging off the Skoal Bandit 956. Bell hung on, setting up a fine duel between young co-drivers Boutsen and Bellof. They delivered too, with an enthralling scrap for the lead. After many laps, Bellof put the works car back ahead with a slingshot move down pit straight. Behind these two, the race was going to pieces.

The treacherous track surface delivered punctures at random. First Kremer, then Joest, then the Jones/Schuppan Porsche, which had already been brought into the wrong pit box by Jones, then spun by Schuppan. With later turbo trouble, the Aussies faded to eighth place. “Worst affected was Richard Lloyd’s 956 which pitted very few laps for new rubber. After three or four unscheduled stops, it became comedic. After 12 (!) unscheduled tyre changes for Jan Lammers and Jonathan Palmer, it became utterly farcical. After the race, Dunlop reported a grand total of 59 punctures!”

Mass had been running third, but six punctures ended any chance he had of challenging Derek and Stefan for victory and the championship. The two lead cars remained curiously free of tyre trouble: Bell/Bellof suffered just one puncture and Boutsen/Hobbs none at all.

In the closing stages, Hobbs pulled over in the infield with a broken coil, lifting any remaining pressure on the Bellof/Bell Porsche with Bell taking the chequered flag, shown after six hours, since the 1000km target of 259 laps wasn’t close to being reached.

Stefan Bellof became the 1984 World Endurance Drivers’ Champion after a dominant season; six wins and five poles in 11 races. “I have to say thank you for the mechanics and also for Derek, he did his job very well and he helped me to this title,” said the new champion. Stefan took the mantle from Jacky Ickx, who watched the podium presentation with a look of serious concentration on his face. “I’ve won with Al Holbert in America five races this year, and with Stefan I’ve won four,” said Bell, “It’s been my most enjoyable year of racing, because I’ve raced so much the best car all around the world.”

So Mass was defeated in his bid for the championship, but the well-humoured veteran seemed to take it well. He and Ickx’s struggles left them three laps in arrears at the flag, but still in second place. Somehow, despite suffering all those punctures, Lammers and Palmer rounded out the podium. Next home were Kremer’s two cars, Van der Merwe/Fouche enjoying a cleaner run than Winkelhock/French and taking fourth. With both of his other cars in trouble, John Fitzpatrick’s best finisher was the local Team Australia car in sixth.

There had been much optimism before Sandown, but the official crowd count numbered only 13,800, more realistic estimates had it at sub-10,000, well beneath break-even point. Clashing tennis and cricket dates were cited by the LCCA as reasons for the poor turnout, but these were annual events that dated back to JC’s days playing full-back for Jerusalem…

The fundamental problems were the lack of an adequate TV deal and race sponsor(s) to underwrite the event. For proceeding without those, the board should have been shot then burned. Still, they doubled down and fucked it all up again in 1988 with the Sandown 360Km, this time completing the destruction of the club…

Jon Davison then saved the day for Sandown of course, but the club itself was no-more.

Etcetera…

Jack thinking how cool it is to just rock-up and drive…so different to being chief-cook and bottle washer at the Brabham Racing Organisation! Yes OCD’ers, I know it wasn’t the first time he had been driver only, I was attempting some humour.

The Colin Bond/Andrew Miedecke John Fitzpatrick run Team Oz Porsche 962 at rest below.

Tony Johns picks up the story about the road going works-956s…

“Mark a good post, a couple more photos from that weekend. I was one of the three lucky staff members to get a ride that morning!”

“What happened was that the three cars were driven back after Thursday practice for a function held at Porsche Cars Australia headquarters, and on Friday morning driven back to the circuit by the mechanics. My photo (above) shows Roger Watts climbing in and the nose section being fitted after crossing the gutter.”

“A neighbour complained to the police who came and waited all day to catch them returning, but that never happened. After the win and the world championship the cars were trucked to Tullamarine and airfreighted back to Germany.”

“Allan hosted all the teams at Noble Park but the Works cars were prepared in his own race shop.”

Credits…

PCA-Porsche Cars Australia, Mulsanne Memories, MotorSport Images, Getty Images, Bruce Forsyth, Alamy, Malcolm Bryan, Tony Johns

Finito…