1976 Australian Touring Car Championship

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The 1976 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title for Group C Touring Cars.[1] It was the 17th running of the Australian Touring Car Championship.[2] The championship began at Symmons Plains Raceway on 29 February and ended at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit on 28 November in the longest season in the history of the series. 1976 saw a substantial change to the ATCC calendar which was expanded to eleven rounds, incorporating the end-of-season long distance Australian Championship of Makes races for the first time. These races included Sandown’s Hang Ten 400 and the Phillip Island 500K, although notably not the Bathurst 1000.[3]

After contesting only selected rounds of the 1975 championship, Allan Moffat won his second Australian Touring Car Championship in 1976. He won the Calder, Oran Park and Adelaide rounds, building up a mid-season points lead that his rivals could not bridge. At the Hang Ten 400 at Sandown in September, Moffat re-launched his team as the Moffat Ford Dealers team with a new Ford XB Falcon GT, built after Moffat’s original car and transporter were destroyed by fire on the way to the Adelaide round in June. Moffat borrowed the Ford Falcon of John Goss for the Adelaide and Lakeside rounds to stay in the series until the new car was built.

Barry Seton, driving a Ford Capri in the Up to 3000 cc class, was Moffat’s main title threat for most of the year, winning his class four times, with a best finish of sixth outright at Sandown. Seton lost second place in the championship to Colin Bond when the Holden Torana driver won the final race of the season at Phillip Island. Bond had previously won at Sandown and Lakeside, but had mechanical failures that Moffat, even in his borrowed machinery, did not.

Drivers[edit]

The following drivers competed in the 1976 Australian Touring Car Championship.

Calendar[edit]

The 1976 Australian Touring Car Championship was contested over eleven rounds.[7]

Rd. Event title Circuit Location / state Date Format Winner Team Report
1 Symmons Plains Symmons Plains Launceston, Tasmania 29 February John Harvey B&D Autos
2 Calder Calder Melbourne, Victoria 17 March Allan Moffat Allan Moffat Racing
3 Oran Park Oran Park Sydney, New South Wales 28 March Allan Moffat Allan Moffat Racing
4 Sandown Sandown Melbourne, Victoria 11 April Colin Bond Marlboro Holden Dealer Team
5 Amaroo Park Amaroo Park Sydney, New South Wales 18 April Charlie O’Brien O’Brien’s Transport Shell Sport
6 Datsun Trophy Adelaide International Raceway Adelaide, South Australia 6 June Two heats Allan Moffat John Goss Racing Pty Ltd
7 The Governor’s Trophy[8] Lakeside Brisbane, Queensland 27 June Colin Bond Marlboro Holden Dealer Team
8 Hang Ten 400 Sandown Melbourne, Victoria 12 September One race (400 km) Peter Brock Team Brock report
9 Rothmans 250 Adelaide International Raceway Adelaide, South Australia 24 October One race (250 km) Allan Grice Craven Mild Racing
10 Rothmans 300[9] Surfers Paradise International Raceway Surfers Paradise, Queensland 30 October One race (300 km) Peter Brock Team Brock
11 Rover 500K Phillip Island Phillip Island, Victoria 28 November One race (500 km) Colin Bond Marlboro Holden Dealer Team report

Class system[edit]

Cars competed in two classes,[1] based on engine capacity:

  • Up to 3000 cc[1]
  • 3001 to 6000 cc[1]

Points system[edit]

Championship points were awarded to drivers on the following basis:

Pos.[1] 1st[1] 2nd[1] 3rd[1] 4th[1] 5th[1] 6th[1]
All Rounds
Outright 		4 3 2 1
Rounds 1-7
each class 		9 6 4 3 2 1
Round 8-11
each class 		12 8 6 4 2 1

Points were only awarded to a driver where the car had completed 75% of race distance and was running at the completion of the final lap.

Only the best two results from the four long distance races could be counted by each driver.[1]

Championship standings[edit]

Colour Result
Gold Winner
Silver Second place
Bronze Third place
Green Points finish
Blue Non-points finish
Non-classified finish (NC)
Purple Retired (Ret)
Red Did not qualify (DNQ)
Did not pre-qualify (DNPQ)
Black Disqualified (DSQ)
White Did not start (DNS)
Withdrew (WD)
Race cancelled (C)
Blank Did not practice (DNP)
Did not arrive (DNA)
Excluded (EX)

  Up to 3000 cc class competitors

Points scored in the long distance races which were not retained for championship totals are shown in the above table within double brackets.

Australian Championship of Makes[edit]

The 1976 Australian Championship of Makes was contested over a four-round series, staged concurrently with the final four rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship.[7] It was the sixth championship for manufacturers to be awarded by CAMS, and the first to be contested under the Australian Championship of Makes name.[2] The title was won by General Motors-Holden’s.[2]

Class system[edit]

Cars competed in four classes[1] based on engine capacity.

  • Up to 1300 cc[1]
  • 1301 to 2000 cc[1]
  • 2001 to 3000 cc[1]
  • 3001 to 6000 cc[1]

Points system[edit]

Championship points were awarded in each class on a 9, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 basis, with the results of all four races counting towards the championship.[1]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Australian Title Conditions, 1976 CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, pages 81 to 85
  2. ^ a b c Australian Titles, docs.cams.com.au As archived at www.webcitation.org on 31 October 2013
  3. ^ Howard, Graham; Wilson, Stewart (1986). “1976: Moffat bounces back”. Australian Touring Car Championship 25 fabulous years. R&T Publishing. pp. 168–176. ISBN 0-9590378-2-9.
  4. ^ a b Ray Bell, Australian Touring Car Championship – Rd. 5, Amaroo Park, Racing Car News, May 1976, page 72
  5. ^ a b Official programme, Hang Ten 400, Sept 12 (1976)
  6. ^ Tom Naughton, Moffat’s action-packed Calder, Racing Car News, April 1976, page 76
  7. ^ a b Australian Touring Car Championship, Australian Competition Yearbook, 1977 Edition, pages 48 to 73
  8. ^ “1976 ATCC”. The Programme Covers Project. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  9. ^ Brock Torana races away in record 300, The Courier Mail, Monday, 8 November 1976, page 18
  10. ^ a b c d Graham Howard, Stewart Wilson & David Greenhalgh, 1976 ATCC, The Official History of Australian Touring Car Championship – 50 Years, page 169