THIS weekend’s Apex Steel Muscle Car Masters will see a variety of historic V8 Supercars hit Sydney Motorsport Park across multiple categories.
The majority of V8 Supercars at the event will assemble for the time trial-based 5-Litre V8 Super Sprint, including Adam Walton’s 2001 Queensland 500-winning Shell Helix AU Falcon and the Alcair Air Conditioning VS Commodore being driven by its original pilot, David Attard.
Finally, a third category at the event will feature V8 Supercars of notable history, as three of them are set to line up among the wild and diverse machinery of the National Sports Sedan Series.
The Supercar in the Sports Sedan field with the most obvious lineage is Ray Hislop’s ex-Ford Performance Racing (FPR) FG Falcon, currently presented in a base livery similar to the 1977 Moffat Ford Dealers tribute which FPR ran at the 2012 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
Pic: AN1 Images/Scott Wensley
Pic: AN1 Images/Ross Gibb
Hislop’s Falcon is chassis FPR 1111, debuted in the 2011 L&H 500 at Phillip Island by Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards.
It was Winterbottom’s car for the back end of the 2011 season and the entirety of 2012, with high points including third in the ’12 championship behind the Triple Eight pair of Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes and three race wins across consecutive rounds at Hamilton, Wanneroo and Phillip Island.
Pic: AN1 Images/Dirk Klynsmith
Pic: AN1 Images/Nathan Wong
Hislop’s Falcon is not the only 2012 V8 Supercar racing the Sports Sedans. Christian Millett’s VE Commodore is the Tekno Autosports car driven by Jonathon Webb throughout that year’s championship.
A Triple Eight customer chassis – 888A-029 – built but never raced by Paul Morris Motorsport, its debut weekend in Adelaide was cut short when Greg Murphy fired hard into the back of Webb during the Sunday qualifying session, resulting in massive damage to both cars.
Perhaps this car’s greatest claim to fame is that it is the first Supercar raced in the main game by three-time Supercars champion and IndyCar star Scott McLaughlin, who partnered Webb for the 2012 endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst where the pair finished 10th and sixth respectively.
Pic: AN1 Images/Justin Deeley
Pic: Supplied (Simon Copping)
The eldest of the three V8 Supercars among the Sports Sedan fleet is the ex-Perkins Engineering VZ Commodore regularly raced by Simon Copping.
Run by Copping as a Sports Sedan since 2011, this car is chassis PE 044 – built new in 2006 and raced throughout that year’s V8 Supercars Championship Series by Steven Richards in Jack Daniel’s colours.
Richards drove this car to victory in two of the Australian Grand Prix support races in ’06 and claimed the round overall at Wanneroo despite not winning a race across the weekend.
It was then Jack Perkins‘ car for the early part of the 2007 season until Perkins, then a rookie in the championship, crashed the car heavily during practice for the Pukekohe round. It was parked for the remainder of the year and never returned to main game competition.
The National Sports Sedan Series will be one of many popular V8-flavoured categories appearing at Muscle Car Masters.
Also on track will be Touring Car Masters, the Group C & A Heritage Touring Cars, Group N Historic Touring Cars, Five-Litre Touring Car Super Sprint, Group S Historic Sports Cars, HQ Holdens and the 1960s & ‘70s-oriented Australian Trans Am category.
Tickets are currently available online.
The Apex Steel Muscle Car Masters is an advertising partner of V8 Sleuth.