| Category | Group A Sports Cars | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constructor | Kaditcha | ||||||||
| Designer(s) | Barry Lock Wayne Eckersley |
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| Technical specifications | |||||||||
| Chassis | Aluminum monocoque | ||||||||
| Suspension (front) | Double wishbone with pullrod operated inboard coil springs | ||||||||
| Suspension (rear) | Double wishbone with pullrod operated inboard rear springs and Tyrrell uprights | ||||||||
| Engine | 1983-84: mid-engine, longitudinally mounted, 2,992 cc (182.6 cu in), Cosworth DFV NA V8 1984-86: mid-engine, longitudinally mounted, 3,955 cc (241.3 cu in), Cosworth DFL NA V8 2010-: mid-engine, longitudinally mounted, 3,494 cc (213.2 cu in), Cosworth DFZ, NA V8 |
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| Transmission | Hewland FGB 400 5 speed manual | ||||||||
| Weight | 775 kg | ||||||||
| Competition history | |||||||||
| Notable entrants | Bap Romano Racing | ||||||||
| Notable drivers | Bap Romano Alfredo Costanzo |
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| Debut | 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship Round 1 at Sandown Raceway | ||||||||
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| Constructors' Championships | 0 | ||||||||
| Drivers' Championships | 1 (1984) | ||||||||
The Romano WE84 was an Australian designed and built closed top racing car built to CAMS Group A Sports Car specifications. The car began its life as the Kaditcha K583 when it first appeared in the 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship and was built by the Queensland based Kaditcha owner/engineer Barry Lock after he was approached by Brisbane accountant, property developer, timber mill owner and 'all round sportsman' Bap Romano in 1981 with the idea of building a Le Mans type coupe.
Bap Romano's ultimate ambition was to take the car to the famous 24 Hour French classic in an All-Australian challenge. This did not happen for Romano although going on the qualifying performance of the car at the 1984 Sandown 1000 race as part of the 1984 World Endurance Championship held at Melbourne's Sandown Raceway against the FIA Group C Sportscars showed that the car would not have been out of place in Group C2 at Le Mans.
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Romano travelled to England at the end of 1981 and purchased a 3.0L Cosworth DFV V8 engine from John Nicholson of Nicholson McLaren Engines. While in England Romano was introduced to the Works Manager at Tyrrell Racing Neil Davis who took an interest in Romano's plans for the car. The two formed a friendship that saw the K583's suspension designed around components on the 1981 Tyrrell 010 Formula One car.
The Cosworth was chosen for its proven reliability in racing against the best alternative at the time, the 5.0L Chevrolet V8 which also carried more weight than the Cosworth (CAMS Group A Sports Car engines were limited to 5,000cc capacity). When purchased the engine was reportedly producing 406 bhp @ 9,450 rpm and was rebuilt to be able to run for 2000 racing miles. This compared to the DFV in Grand Prix racing which required a rebuild after just 350 miles.
By mid-1982 the car was built with full Ground effects aerodynamics and was ready for testing. The car proved ok in testing but the suspension was proving suspect.
By the time the Kaditcha K583 Cosworth made its debut in Round 1 of the 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship at Sandown Raceway in Melbourne, Romano had enlisted the services of former Williams and Tyrrell F1 mechanic Wayne Eckersley to help sort out the car after his faith in Lock had eroded with the suspension failure on the car. Romano, driving in Class B (1600 - 3000cc) suffered a suspension failure in practice and crashed the car forcing it to be a non-starter for both heats on race day.
The car suffered yet another suspension failure during practice and a DNF due to a burnt out coil in Heat 1 of Round 2 of the championship at Adelaide. The coil was replaced in time for Heat 2 where Romano and the car scored their first win, coming home 5.5 seconds in front of eventual series champion Peter Hopwood driving a Chev powered open top Kaditcha. In the 5 rounds and 10 races of the 1983 championship, Romano and the K583 scored 3 wins, 6 fastest laps and 2 pole positions.
Eckersley rebuilt the car, redesigning the suspension before the start of the 1984 championship. Under Eckersley's direction the car was transformed and Romano went on to dominate the championship. The car was renamed the Romano WE84 (WE for Wayne Eckersley) and Bap Romano won 4 of the 5 rounds, sat on pole for every round and set fastest race lap in every race he contested. The only round he did not win was Round 1 at Calder where he was involved in a crash during Heat 1 which destroyed the front of the car causing Romano to be a non-starter in Heat 2. Despite running in Class B which paid more points for a position than his main opposition Chris Clearihan (driving Hopwood's 1983 car) did for a position in Class C, Romano would have still won the 1984 series had they been competing for the same points.
In early-mid 1984 Bap Romano, feeling that he had the fastest sports car in Australia (and having proved so in the 1984 ASCC), challenged star Aussie driver Peter Brock, with Brock to drive the Porsche 956 that he was to drive at the 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans, to a race on any circuit in Australia fair to both cars claiming the WE84 could beat Brock's 956. At the time Brock's Melbourne based Holden Dealer Team had taken delivery of the Porsche for repainting in the colours of team patron Bob Jane for publicity purposes and so the team could become familiar with the car after 10 years of running Holden V8's. Romano claimed in a Brisbane paper that it was 'ridiculous' for Brock to pretend that his 1984 Le Mans challenge was an 'All-Australian' effort since the Porsche was made in Germany.[1]
Following the successful 1984 championship, Eckersley and Romano prepared the car for the Sandown 1000 which was a round of the 1984 World Endurance Championship where it would compete in the special AC Class for Australian based GT and Sports cars. The preparation included adding 70kg of ballast to the 775kg WE84 to bring it in line with the FIA weight scale for cars with a 3.9L, four valves per cylinder engine. Despite Romano purchasing a 3.9L Cosworth DFL with the intent on putting it in before the meeting it was only put in after the first day of practice when it became apparent the 3L DFV was past its best. Enlisted to co-drive with Romano for the race was multiple Australian Drivers' Champion Alfredo Costanzo.
After changing the engine to the 560hp 3.9L unit during practice Costanzo and Romano were able to improve their times by around 4 seconds per lap. Following numerous gearbox and brake problems throughout practice as well as battling a severe under-steering problem on Sandown's new slower infield section, Costanzo qualified the car in 13th position (1st in AC) with a 1:38.400, 1.9 seconds in front of Allan Grice driving his 1984 Australian GT Championship winning 6.0L Chevrolet Monza but some 6.8 seconds slower than the pole time set by eventual race winner and 1984 World Champion Stefan Bellof driving his Group C Rothmans Porsche 956. Costanzo's time was only 0.4 seconds off the Group C2 pole time set by Englishman Gordon Spice in a Tiga GC84 powered by the 3.3L version of the same Cosworth DFL powering the WE84. Costanzo's time showed that the Australian designed and built car was capable of mixing it with the best Sports Cars in the world.[2]
More gearbox and drake problems during the race, along with a collision with the Rothmans Porsche of Johnny Dumfries which broke the nose cone from the car saw Romano and Costanzo only complete 106 laps, 100 behind winners Bellof and Derek Bell. Despite still running at the end, the pair were not classified as finishers due to completing an insufficient number of laps.
Bap Romano's previous challenge had gone unanswered by Peter Brock. However, the 956 that Brock and co-driver Larry Perkins were to drive at the Sandown 1000 was upgraded to the new 962 model and was in fact driven by the versatile Colin Bond and co-driven by open wheel racer Andrew Miedecke after Brock and Perkins became unavailable. In a car neither had driven before and with approximately 2-300+ more horsepower than either was used to Bond qualified the Porsche 962 in 11th place with a time of 1:36.000, 2.4 seconds faster than Costanzo qualified the 3.9L Romano Cosworth while Bap Romano was able to set a time in the high 1:39's. Bond and Miedecke ran a steady race and finished finished 6th, 8 laps behind the winning Rothmans Porsche.
Due to reliability problems with the car and engine Romano only contested 3 rounds of the 1985 Australian Championship. That plus the appearance of other specially built cars such as a Lola T610-Chevrolet for Terry Hook (2nd) and the Mazda 13B powered JWS C2 of Jeff Harris (3rd in 1984 & 1985) saw Romano only finish 6th in his title defense. The series was won by 1982 champion Chris Clearihan driving the Steve Webb owned Kaditcha Chev.
Romano only contested two rounds of the 1986 Australian Sports Car Championship. The 1986 title saw the debut of the John Bowe driven Veskanda 5.8L Chev built by former ASCC competitor Brenie Van Elsen which dominated the series. The WE84 suffered a bad crash at Amaroo Park in Sydney when the throttle stuck open as the car drove over Bitupave Hill at the end of the main straight. Going into the left hander before the right hand Dunlop Loop Romano couldn't slow the car and it drove through the infield, hit a dip and bounced across the track at speed hitting an earth bank front on which not only destroyed the front of the WE84 but also resulted in two broken legs for Romano with emergency crew's taking over an hour to remove Romano from his car where despite his injuries a conscious Romano instructed rescuers where to cut the front of the car so the front wouldn't collapse on top of him. After 3 and a bit seasons of sports car racing in Australia, Romano retired the car following the crash and once recovered he concentrated on racing open wheelers in the Australian Drivers' Championship.[3]
Bap Romano retained the car and commissioned the cars original builder Barry Lock to build a replacement chassis to replace the one written off in the 1986 Amaroo crash. This was done by 2001 and by 2010 the WE84 had been completely rebuilt and track tested at Queensland Raceway by Romano himself.[4] Currently Bap Romano drives the car in historic events including returning to Lakeside Park in Brisbane 26 years after it last competed there, at the Festival of Sports Cars on 22-24 July.[5] The car now runs with the 3.5L Cosworth DFZ V8 engine developed for Formula One that Romano had intended to put the car after 1986 but didn't due to the rebuild needed after Romano's Amaroo Park crash.