it's the Harrop Monaro!!

[SS8_Gohan]

read this the other day in "Drive", thought it was quite good, for those who missed it, should be interesting reading...

____________________________________________________

Can consumers look to this weekend's Bathurst 24 Hours as a guide to the reliability of showroom cars? Not quite.

V8 Supercar racer John Bowe is angry that a field of production-based cars contesting the Bathurst 24-hour race this weekend has to deal with a 7.0-litre Holden Monaro sports sedan (pictured), a car he claims is "way, way outside the spirit of the rules".

"The Monaro should win by miles," says Bowe, who will drive a $750,000 Ferrari 360GT in the first of what is expected to become an annual event on the calendar.

"Apart from the shell, there is not a single thing on that car that relates to the original Monaro," insists Bowe, who lists a 7.0-litre Corvette engine from a Le Mans racer, Holinger six-speed sequential gearbox, Ford differential and specially fabricated front and rear suspension.

"The road-car suspension has been scrapped in favour of a unique double-wishbone racing rear-end design manufactured by Harrop Engineering -- it's more a Harrop car than a Holden," says Bowe, who, we should point out, also works for Holden's arch rival Ford developing performance road cars.

"It has more power than a V8 supercar ... if it's not 10 seconds faster than the rest, it's a joke."

Bowe says he doesn't blame Holden for grabbing the opportunity to give the Monaro an image boost but wonders whether the punters will be fooled into believing that "this $1 million creation is really a $60,000 Monaro".

Bowe says that Procar, the organising body behind the 24-hour race, has bent over backwards to attract the Monaro beast into the event.

"It's wrong, but we're not taking our cricket bat home," he says. "We're going to Mount Panorama to do our best with a production-based car that meets the FIA regulations."

The controversy over the Monaro "sports sedan" has dominated discussions in the weeks leading into the inaugural Bathurst 24 Hours, which has attracted international teams to Australia.

Most of the cars competing for outright honours are limited-edition competition versions such as the Ferrari 360GT and Porsche 911 GT3 RS. A dark horse is the American-built Mosler, entered by a British team. It's a very low-volume 1100kg street racer with a reported 420kW on tap.

Consumers seeking a guide to the reliability and pace of more affordable near-stock models will need to look further back in the field to the likes of Ford Falcons, Holden Commodores, Mitsubishi Evos, BMW M3s, Subaru WRX Stis, and Toyota MR2s, along with a lone Nissan 350Z.

Factory-entered cars are rare, which is surprising, given what appears to be a great opportunity for manufacturers to establish a car's sporting credentials and score some serious backyard barbecue cred.

Returning Australian international David Brabham, who is racing a Porsche GT3 RS, confirmed the race promises to be no walk in the park.

"Mount Panorama has got to be one of the toughest circuits anywhere -- it's a brutal place on car and driver," said the veteran of 16 previous 24-hour races in places like Spa, Daytona and Le Mans.

____________________________________________________

[ultim8DTM5]

and its BMW 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th!

[hitnrun]

Ahh well, the Monaro won, I guess I will have to eat my words about it. All points on unfairness aside, it is a very good effort from any team that has a car that lasts the whole 24 hours, more so if it is the first offical race.

However the Germany cars Ie BMW where very very competitive.

Ohhh well I will cough it up. Congrats to Holden, HRT, Harrops etc.

Still if only they allowed my dad's uncle's brother in-law with his 541 1/3 chevy small block 12 cyc v8. It would totally kick butt, cause like it has turbo factory rotary headers and does 11's on the track

Also how sweet was the mosler. definitely a tough machine.

[Duncan]

That Mosler was a nice looking car, but it wasn't tough enough - run without a clutch for the last 18 hours or so - accoring to the clowns/comentators on channel 7 they were only using 3,4,5 for the that time - must have plenty of torque for a race engine to pull out of the pits in 3rd!

Go the Mirages!

[akeenan]

That Mosler

what a beast of a car

totally awesome

[Guest Boxhead]

i thought the most interesting part of the race is that 2 japanese teams had mitsubishi mirages place in like top 15, to me that ashtonishing with that car, granted they were 60 laps behind winner, but they beat alot of higher name cars...

[Duncan]

I didn't realise the mirages were from japan, I assumed they were from the lcoal Mirage series.

Those things are weapons, they have the 2l 6cy from the FTO with about 150kw in a nice, light car.

[EnricoPalazzo]

Aren't they 1.6L Mivec engines makin 170hp at fly?:uh-huh:

[Guest INASNT]

The molser looked like a lamborghini from the front and a corvette from the back!

If their drivers had more experience and testing at the track i recon it could have given the monaro a good run!

[DriftR]

the monaro is bullshit

like u can buy anything like that for 60k from holden

the rest were based on factory cars, even some of the z3 m coupe things had stock quiet exhuasts and they were doing well.

the s2000 with neons was a bit fast and furious hehehe.

let me tell u up the top of the mountain in the bush with no lights freezing my nuts off was a interesting experience but the view and the car sounds were awesome i loved the silver/purple porsche and the yellow porsche had some major issues it sounded like a truck.

the mosler thing was very nice and his driving line made me think he was on rails cause no matter where he entered the corner he could just go soo tight around it, the ferarri had a motorbike under the hood hahhaah sooo awesome i think i might buy 2

and they swapped an engine from what i know cause it blew one 4 hours into it or something but hitting rev limiter on gear changes constantly wouldnt have been helping.

was a good day out there but the hype and shit about the monaro is all crap.

it did go well and pulled out of corners quick but for the amount of mods it has u would want it too, the ferarri looked better around corners so smooth like it wasnt trying

and that magna with the huge fully sick wing, was it v8? it sounded like no magna i have heard hahaha.

anyway my 2c

[Duncan]

Yes, the magna was a v8 from the "Future Tourer" category. It's a shame bugger all night racing was shown on TV, would have been VERY interesting for the drivers with such a discrepancy in speeds.

[400HP]

Is there a website with the final results so we can see the full list of cars and results?

[Duncan]

bathurst24hr.com and racetime.com.au

[DriftR]

thought it was that magna hehehe the 350z sounded ok hehehe went alright for a na too

was funny the mr2s struggling i was right near the first one when it kissed the wall and then over near the mean sounding porsche when it went nuts in the sand hehehe come to think of it there wasnt one spot of the track i wasnt at , at any one time hehee.

food was shit, no good looking scenery but there wasnt many holden ford yobbos

[Guest INASNT]

From the 4 hrs of footage they showed on channel 7 it didnt look like there were many spectators there!

[_turtle_]

hey i watched this on optus sports, didnt' realise what it was

but the race i watched was some 2hr endurance showroom showdown. had rx7's, evo's, s15's etc. rx7 lead for a while but had problems halfway and the s15 took the lead, looked like it was gonna win and in the last 5mins sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders and got taken by the evo 6 and evo 7 and came 3rd. had an sti competing as well, he was doing pretty well too, i think they said he had no 3rd gear!

[Morgs]

Originally posted by INASNT

From the 4 hrs of footage they showed on channel 7 it didnt look like there were many spectators there!

From all report i've heard you could spectate from virtually any position you picked... and it was heaven for those who were there!

Im pretty excited over the potential of this event, and as I've said I hope to see alot more variety next year, with Holden throwing down the gauntlet. Cars like the Monaro 427 are ground breakers and I think they have potential to start a new catagory of racing. Its what we all want to see, 427Monaro, V8 RWD Magna!, the Mosler, and hopefully next year more manufacturers will take to the event with their own vehicle... maybe someone will enter a GTR

[Guest INASNT]

Originally posted by _turtle_

hey i watched this on optus sports, didnt' realise what it was  

but the race i watched was some 2hr endurance showroom showdown.  had rx7's, evo's, s15's etc.  rx7 lead for a while but had problems halfway and the s15 took the lead, looked like it was gonna win and in the last 5mins sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders and got taken by the evo 6 and evo 7 and came 3rd.  had an sti competing as well, he was doing pretty well too, i think they said he had no 3rd gear!

yeah i saw that on inside speed 2.

that race was just before the main 24hr race. And some of the cars that raced in that race, raced in the 24hr race 2 i think.

[DriftR]

hmmmm

yeah i agree people who were there were lucky it wasnt packed, there were people parked there on the side of the track watching the race from the comfort of their car hehehe like a nice black 911 turbo sitting on the corner of conrod and the main straight watching tv in his car and watching the race hehehe.

and the turbos at night boy did they show their stuff all u could hear was boost in that cold air i would have been going nuts too,

the potential for this event is huge ill be there next year for sure. even though it was dusty and stinking hot heheh and did the old skool bushwalks to find better spots ehehhe.

cant beat the discs glowing at night either the monaro and the stock e46 m3 had bright discs none of the porsches glowed or the mosler (beast)

its a shame that lamborghini didnt even enter and viper/supra/nsx backed out.

but the ferarri made up for it. there was a viper sitting outside which i took heaps of pics of, it was with a sh*tload of chargers hehehe.

and the ute muster that was supposed to be huge had about 7 utes hehehe

think it was more to do with poor advertising, low funding and not alot of people signing up to race.

procar forums tell u the story

[Fitzpatrick Speed Works]

I helped prepare one of the mirages for the race and am good friends with peter leehmuis one of the racers, he was comin 11th then one of the porsches ran into him. The cars are just the mirage cup cars they are a jap spec cyborg r mirage decked out with rally art goodies they arent like anything you can by here in fact they are 4 secs faster around wakefield then the v8 brute utes hahhaa.