Australian GT Championship

The Australian GT Championship is a CAMS-sanctioned national title for drivers of GT cars, held annually from 1960 to 1963, from 1982 to 1985 and from 2005. Each championship up to and including the 1963 title was contested over a single race and those after that year over a series of races. The category has not always been well defined and often has become a refugee home for competitors and cars orphaned by category collapse or a sudden change in regulation.

In the first era the championship races were open to closed cars (not necessarily production based) complying with CAMS Appendix K regulations. These cars were heavily modified, so much so that distinctive shapes like open top Jaguar E-Type with a specially created closed cockpit and were barely recogniseable or cars created for the class like the Centaur GT driven by John French or the Corvette Special built by Murray Carter. Numbers dropped rapidly away as the years went on and the class was left behind in 1963.

The 1982 to 1985 titles were open to heavily modified production based closed cars complying with CAMS Group D GT regulations, with Group B Sports Sedans also invited to compete in 1982. The category was something of a hybrid, a merger of the former Australian Sports Sedan Championship and vehicles which had been competing previously in the Australian Sports Car Championship which changed regulations away from being a category for Production based sports cars to a category for cars closer to international sports car racing. The GT Championship become a new home for the two combined categories. Porsches dominated early one with Formula One world champion Alan Jones winning one title in an entry backed by the Australian Porsche distributor. As time went on the usually slower Sports Sedan started to usurp the category as the more expensive Sports Car refugees dropped in numbers.

The 2005 series was started as a continuation of the Australian Nations Cup Championship and has year by year moved towards adopting FIA GT3 regulations, but also allows other varieties of cars which do not meet GT3 regulations.

Champions

References

• A History of Australian Motor Sport, © 1980
• Australian Motor Racing Yearbooks, 1982/83 to 1985/86
• www.camsmanual.com.au
• www.gtchampionship.com.au

External links

• CAMS Manual on Line
• Australian GT website