The announcement of the Tasman Cup being resurrected awarded to the winner of seven S5000 races at Bathurst and Surfers Paradise this November-December is fantastic news for Australian single seater fans.
The plan is a true Tasman, with races for the Ligier JS3-S5000 Ford chassis’ on both sides of The Ditch (Tasman Sea) next year, creating a series of races in New Zealand and Australia eagerly contested and watched in the sixties and seventies.
The new S5000, one make cars made their race debut at Sandown Park in late 2019, with the first Gold Star plans in 2020 scuttled by the dreaded Covid 19. This year Joey Mawson won the much coveted award in a closely contested series comprising 12 races at four circuits between January-April; Phillip Island, Symmons Plains, Sandown Park and Sydney Motorsport Park.
The Tasman plans build on that great start.
Readers of primotipo will be familiar with the Tasman Cup. Bruce McLaren won the first in 1964 racing a 2.5-litre Cooper T70 Climax, the last was taken by Warwick Brown in 1975 – his mount was a Lola T332 Chev F5000.
In 1976 we went our separate ways with F5000 series, if it was in any doubt the fate of the great championship was settled in 1977 when the NZers went Formula Pacific, while Australia remained the last bastion of Formula 5000 until the early eighties.
History suggests the Kiwis got it right.
Time to plan a trip to the Goldie, hmm, think I’ll stay in Byron and drive up each day…Hop to it folks, let’s get behind these fantastic home-grown racing cars.
And yep, I know the cars have been named Rogers AF1s recently but I am not fussed. They are Ligier JS3-S5000s according to the chassis plates and were called that for the first 3 years of their lives. The Rogers name ignores the IP in the cars which is primarily that of Chris Lambden, Mike Borland and Onroak-Ligier. Bless the Rogers’ money and commitment but the name horse well and truly bolted years ago.
See here for a piece on the cars; Progress… | primotipo…
Credits…
Daniel Kalisz, S5000 website and Facebook page
Tailpiece…
Finito…
primotipo... 