Two Australian teams will spearhead Ford’s factory attack on the Suzuka 1000km some 40-years after a selection of touring car stars headed to Japan to contest the InterTEC 500.
Leading GT teams Miedecke Motorsport and Melbourne Performance Centre will combine to represent Ford in the prestigious Japanese event racing a Mustang GT3 Evo.
Factory pilots Frédéric Vervisch, Chris Mies and Denis Olsen will spearhead the attack, with Broc Feeney unable to do so due to a clash with The Bend 500 Supercars event.
This Australian challenge to the Suzuka 1000km comes 40-years since the likes of Peter Brock, Allan Grice and Charlie O’Brien all took part in the InterTEC 500.
Ran in November 1986, the InterTEC was an important event due to its place on the World Touring Car Championship for the next year leading to many top teams and drivers from across the globe racing.
Brock was well down the line of planning his World Touring Car Championship attack courtesy of Mobil, but was still trying to convince General Motors to commit. We all know how that went…
Teaming up with Brock was Allan Moffat in the sole Mobil-backed Holden Dealer Team VK Commodore Group A SS, while Grice continued his overseas program after winning the Australian Grand Prix support race previous weekend having Graeme Crosby as co-driver.
Charlie O’Brien was part of BMW’s crack Schnitzer squad partnering future 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Emanuele Pirro and Brad Jones was also there for Mitsubishi’s Ralliart concern partnering Akihiko Nakaya.
It was an awesome field assembled including the two RAS Sport Volvo 240 Turbos, the swan song for Tom Walkinshaw Racing’s Jaguar XJS, plus plenty of Nissan DR30 Skylines and Toyota Supras.
In the end, the RAS Sport Volvo of Johnny Cecotto and Anders Olofsson took the win ahead of the Team Schnitzer BMW 635 CSi of Pirro/O’Brien.
Grice and Crosby finished an impressive fifth outright, while the others failed to finish.
Here’s hoping the Miedecke Motorsport/Melbourne Performance Centre partnership goes one better than O’Brien at the Suzuka 1000km on September 11-13.