Lowe-Harvey win second round of touring car series

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 3

Lowe-Harvey win second round of touring car series

PA Auckland Neal Lowe bade farewell to Pukekohe in style yesterday when he and the Australian, John Harvey, won the second round of the Group A touring car series.

Lowe drove the second Mobil Holden Dealer team Commodore for 95 of the 178 laps, finishing almost a lap ahead of Trevor Crowe and Tony Longhurst in a BMW.

Third was the Rover Vitesse of Tom Walkinshaw and Win Percy. Lowe, a 38-year-old Aucklander, leaves this week to work for Peter Brock’s Mobil Holden Dealer team in Melbourne. He first drove the Commodore last week-end in Wellington when the car blew the engine with 10 laps to go.

“I have been without a drive after Kent Baigent’s accident at Manfield and the Brock team approached me about driving the Nissan Mobil series,” he said.

“One thing led to another and they offered me the job in Melbourne. I’ll be testing and doing some driving while Peter and Allan Moffat are campaigning in Europe.”

For Harvey the win was a rare occurrence. He won at Bathhurst in 1983 — a victory shared with

Brock — and a couple of endurance races in 198182. “But with Brock and Moffat around in Australia that record is as good as anyone’s,” he said after the race. The chances of a repetition of Brock’s Wellington victory disappeared after 33 laps when his Commodore was in the pits for two laps with a camshaft problem. Brock withdrew 30 laps later. , For the first 30 laps of the race Brock had disputed the lead with fellow Australian, Allan Grice, whose Commodore qualified on pole. Grice, with lightweight Kevlar tyres, appeared to have the edge in speed on everyone but Brock. But by lap 60 he was in the pits and he finally finished seventh after changing a drive shaft. For 20 laps it looked as if the Mark Petch Volvo driven by Thomas Lindstrom (Sweden) and Aucklander Robbie Francevic would be able to cruise to victory, but on lap 106 the Volvo’s distributor pick-up broke. From that point Lowe and Harvey had the race to themselves. There was one small alarm when Harvey almost ran out of fuel before handing over to Lowe. Harvev said: “I tested it

on Saturday and I worked out I could do two laps after it showed empty, but this time the engine coughed and spluttered and nearly cut out, but it picked up enough to allow me to go into the pits.” Tony Longhurst could not match the Commodore for speed in the straights. “I knew we had a lap in hand, so I just concentrated on keeping him (Longhurst) there,” said Lowe. The Commodore of Denny Hulme and Ray Smith blew a gasket and dropped out. Walkinshaw’s third placing was some consolation for the Rover’s poor showing at Wellington. Provisional results.— J. Harvey/N. Lowe (Holden Commodore) 178 laps, 1. T. Crowe/T. Longhurst (BMW) 178, 2. T. Walkinshaw/W. Percy (Rover Vitesse) 175, 3. C. O’Brien/G. Mclntyre (BMW) 175, 4. R. Dickson/A. Hahne (Rover Vitesse) 173, 5. G. Crosby/L. McKinnon (BMW) 171, 6. A. Grice/G. Cameron (Holden Commodore) 169, 7. D. Oxton/K. Bartlett (Ford Sierra) 167, 8. B. Anderson/W. Anderson (Ford Mustang) 165, 9. G. Kay/B. Thomson (Holden Commodore) 165, 10. M. Jennings/D. Barrow (Toyota Corolla) 161, 11. G. McGregor/B Holden (Toyota Sprinter) 162, 12. A. Bagnall/ P. Radicich (Ford Escort) 161,13. J. Morton/J. Richards (BMW) 161, 14. P. Adams/A. Woolf (Toyota Corolla) 160, 15. ______