AMSCAR
AMSCAR was a touring car series held in Australia between 1979 and 1997, based at Amaroo Park in Sydney.
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One of the features of Amaroo Park's history was their promoted touring car series, created by Amaroo's promoters, the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC). Popular with spectators and easy for Sydney's Channel 7 to telecast, it became the backbone of the Sydney touring car scene, a scene which once consisted mostly of privateers, who have largely disappeared since Amaroo closed. On many occasions these events featured larger grid numbers than did the rounds of the national level Australian Touring Car Championship. This was mostly as the large number of Sydney privateers who usually filled the grid in the nationally televised (by Ch.7) Bathurst 1000, rarely raced outside of NSW or South East Queensland due to limited budgets with most usually only making a single trek to Melbourne for the traditional pre-Bathurst 1000 race, the Sandown 500, and the end of season support race at the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide from 1985 to 1995.
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A "Rothmans AMSCAR Series" for touring cars was held in addition to the Sun-7 Chesterfield Series at Amaroo Park in 1979 for a reported A$60,000 in prize money, about $50,000 more than for the ATCC at the time. The second round of the series saw the one-off appearance of long time Ford driver Allan Moffat in a Ron Hodgson Motors Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback. The series was then not held in 1980 and 1981. Fears that the growing number of Sydney-based privateers moving into outright class cars would result in a sharp decline in grid numbers prompted the ARDC to remove the 3.5-litre capacity limit for the 1982 series, which was promoted as the Better Brakes AMSCAR Series. This allowed the V8 powered Holden Commodores, Ford Falcons and Chevrolet Camaros, as well as the V12 Jaguar XJS, to compete in the series alongside the under 3.5-litre cars such as the BMW 635 CSi, the Ford Capris and the growing list of rotary powered Mazda RX-7s, as well as the factory (Gibson) Nissan Bluebird turbos. As the outright cars were proving more popular with spectators, it was seen as an attempt at attracting the headline ATCC teams (such as the Holden Dealer Team, Dick Johnson Racing, Allan Moffat Racing and Roadways Racing) to the AMSCAR Series.
Demise
The increasing national popularity of the Australian Touring Car Championship, improvements in Channel 7's ATCC telecast, and the 1991 economic recession which saw a number of privateer teams only racing in the two ATCC rounds in Sydney and the Bathurst 1000, all gradually reduced the grids until the AMSCAR Series was discontinued after the 1993 season. It was revived in 1997 and held at the ARDC's two circuits, Amaroo Park and Eastern Creek, but with the major teams holding exclusivity to V8 Supercar events, the mostly Sydney-based privateers were not numerous enough to make the series viable and the series folded after 1997.
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During Seven's telecasts of the AMSCAR series at Amaroo, many minor race series for other CAMS categories were also telecast, including: Sports Sedans, Formula Fords, Formula Vee, Sports Cars, Appendix J Touring Cars, and Series Production cars, with many of the categories running their own series at Amaroo outside of the national championship series. Seven's commentators for the AMSCAR series generally included Mike Raymond (also the telecast Producer), Garry Wilkinson, Evan Green, and later Neil Crompton and Peter McKay, with various guest appearances by drivers not competing on a particular day including Dick Johnson, Peter Brock, Bob Morris, Allan Grice and Steve Masterton.
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The following table lists the winners of the annual AMSCAR Series.
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Tony Longhurst achieved more AMSCAR series wins than any other driver, with success in 1986, 1989, 1990 and 1991. Each series win from 1988 to 1990 was attained with a Ford Sierra RS500, these three wins being the most for a single model of car.
