The 1979 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n motor racing title open to

Group C Touring Cars In relation to Australian motorsport, Group C refers to either of two sets of regulations devised by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) for use in Australian Touring Car Racing from 1965 to 1984. These are not to be confused with ...

.Conditions for Australian Titles, 1979 CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, pp. 96–97. It began at Symmons Plains and ended at Adelaide International Raceway after eight rounds.Australian Touring Car Championship, Australian Motor Racing Yearbook 1979/80, pp. 68–87. The title, which was the 20th

Australian Touring Car Championship The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the troph ...

, was won by Bob Morris driving a

Holden Torana The Holden Torana is a mid-sized car that was manufactured by Holden from 1967 to 1980. The name apparently comes from a word meaning "to fly" in an unconfirmed Aboriginal Australian language. The original HB series Torana was released in 196 ...

. 1979 was the first time since the ATCC went to a championship series in

1969 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the ...

rather than the single race it had been previously that a single make and model car had won all rounds of the championship with all 8 rounds being won by the Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback. Including the current season (

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

), such a single car domination has only happened once since in the series, that being when the

Ford Sierra RS500 The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...

won all rounds of the 1988 championship.

Calendar

The 1979 Australian Touring Car Championship was contested over an eight-round series.2005 V8 Supercars TV Guide, p. 73. * Round 3 of the championship at Oran Park featured two separate races, the first for Under 3 litre cars and the second for Over 3 litre cars.Graham Howard, Stewart Wilson, David Greenhalgh, Privateer pips them, The official history – Australian Touring Car Championship – 50 Years, pp. 190–199.

Teams and drivers

The following teams and drivers competed in the 1979

Classes

For championship points allocation purposes, cars competed in two displacement classes: * Up to and including 3000 cc * 3001 to 6000 cc

Points system

Championship points were awarded on a 9,6,4,3,2,1 basis to the first six placegetters in each class and on a 4,3,2,1 basis to the first four placegetters irrespective of class (at each round). Only the best seven results counted towards the total (for each driver).

Championship results

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Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...

, style="background:#dfffdf;", 5th(2) , style="background:#ffffbf;", 1st(13) , , style="background:#ffdf9f;", 3rd(6) , style="background:#ffdf9f;", 3rd(6) , style="background:#ffffbf;", 1st(13) , style="background:#ffffbf;", 1st(13) , style="background:#dfffdf;", 5th((2)) , style="background:#dfdfdf;", 2nd(9) , align="right", 62 (64) , - ! 3 ,

John Harvey John Harvey may refer to: People Academics *John Harvey (astrologer) (1564–1592), English astrologer and physician *John Harvey (architectural historian) (1911–1997), British architectural historian, who wrote on English Gothic architecture a ...

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Charlie O'Brien Charles Hugh O'Brien (born May 1, 1960) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Oakland Athletics (1985), Milwaukee Brewers (1987–90), New York Mets (1990–93), Atlanta Brav ...

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Allan Grice Allan Maxwell Grice (born 21 October 1942), known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000 (1986 and 1990), and as a privateer driver of ...

, style="background:#ffdf9f;", 3rd(6) , style="background:#efcfff;", Ret , , style="background:#dfdfdf;", 2nd(9) , style="background:#efcfff;", Ret , style="background:#ffdf9f;", 3rd(6) , style="background:#ffffff;", DNS , , , align="right", 21 , - ! 8 , Garth Wigston , style="background:#dfdfdf;", 2nd(9) , style="background:#dfffdf;", 6th(1) , , , style="background:#dfffdf;", 4th(4) , , , , style="background:#dfffdf;", 4th(4) , align="right", 18 , - ! 8 , Lawrie Nelson* , style="background:#dfffdf;", 7th(9) , style="background:#efcfff;", Ret , style="background:#ffffbf;", 1st{9) , , style="background:#000000; color:white", DSQ , , , , , align="right", 18 , - ! 10 , Brian Hall* , , , , , , , style="background:#dfffdf;", (9) , style="background:#dfffdf;", (3) , , align="right", 12 , - ! 10 , Steve Masterton* , , style="background:#dfffdf;", (6) , style="background:#dfdfdf;", 2nd(6) , , style="background:#ffffff;", DNS , , style="background:#000000; color:white", DSQ , , , align="right", 12 , - ! 12 ,

John Faulkner John Philip Faulkner (born 12 April 1954) is an Australian former Labor Party politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 1989 to 2015. He was a Cabinet Minister in the Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments. After his election to ...

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Allan Moffat Allan George Moffat, Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 10 November 1939 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian-born Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins ...

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Murray Carter Murray Wishart Carter (born 30 January 1931) is an Australian racing driver. For many years a stalwart of the Australian Touring Car Championship Carter has had one of the longest racing careers of any driver in Australian history, continuing ...

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References

{{Australian Touring Car Racing Australian Touring Car Championship seasons

Touring Cars Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition that uses race-prepared touring cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not move a ...