Group A Ford Sierra RS500

[brown dog]

Originally Posted by KA

Copied across from the '1991 Trakstar Sierra Sapphire 2-litre' thread



Thanks for that Billy- I hadn't realised any of them had ended up as rallycross cars. As you say, the original pair of red/white 'Cartel/NEC' cars in '89 were of Johnson origin, and a new car- in plain white- was built for 1990 (rather than '89).

The car that went to Graham Hathaway appeared as a Trakstar entry in the Donington 1-hour BTCC race early season, Hathaway sharing with Mike Smith, before Graham took over ownership. Gravett shared the new white car with Stig Blomqvist- they famously lost the race (to Rouse I think?) when Stig had a spin coming off the Melbourne loop on the last lap...

I wonder, is the Hathaway car the one that went to Malaysia? from memory, Graham raced an RS500 there in the early 90's alongside a car Graham Goode took out there- think there's a pic earlier in the thread, the Hathaway car is still in Trakstar red/white, rather than the yellow of his original BTCC RS500

I was working for Graham Hathaway in 1992. The Malaysia car was an early rhd DJR car,ex Robb Gravett, which he raced in Malaysia alongside a Black Listerine car of GGR. (they would flip a coin to see who was going to win, no point breaking the cars when there was no other competition!) The car then went back to England and was sold. It was looking a bit tired even at that stage, I remember a huge ripple in the floor just behind the drivers seats from a previous crunch. It was running a mountune engine at the time, and the Harrop 9" diff.