1988 Tooheys 1000
On the Friday afternoon immediately at the close of final qualifying, Holden Special Vehicles driver Tom Walkinshaw lodged a formal protest against the leading Australian Ford Sierras, targeting all three Dick Johnson Racing (DJR) cars, along with the Tony Longhurst and Colin Bond entries.
All three teams had to pull their cars' engines and suspension apart after Friday's qualifying for the scrutineers before having to put them back together again before Saturday's Tooheys Top Ten.
The counter-protest by DJR focused on the front air dam, steering rack and the size of the rear spoiler on only the factory backed Commodores.
The HSV team cars had been entered by Perkins Engineering and not by TWR, therefore the Scot had no authority to lodge a protest and the stewards of the meeting erred in allowing it to proceed, though all of the Sierras were eventually cleared by FISA.
The 1988 race, under the first time sponsorship of Tooheys Brewery, was won by Tony Longhurst and Tomas Mezera driving a Ford Sierra RS500.
It had been hoped by the team that the reliability shown by the BMW's in the European Touring Car Championship against the much faster, but still relatively fragile Ford Sierras would see them leading late in the race.
Class 3, for cars up to 1600cc, was predictably won by the Toyota Team Australia Corolla GT of John Faulkner and Drew Price who finished ninth outright after an all-day sprint.
[4] For cars of over 2500cc engine capacity,[4] it featured the turbocharged Ford Sierras, Nissan Skylines and Mitsubishi Starions, the V8 Holden Commodores and a BMW 635 CSi.
* 9th fastest qualifier George Fury used the #15 Nissan Skyline as co-driver Mark Skaife had crashed the #30 car in practice and it was still being repaired at the time of the Top 10.
* Jim Richards set the qualifying time of 2:23.76 in the #56 Mobil 1 Racing BMW M3, but Peter Brock drove the car in the runoff.
Predictably in the underpowered, naturally aspirated 4 cyl BMW, Brock was the slowest in the runoff with a time over 2.2 seconds slower than 11th placed Allan Grice.
* As the shootout was not for grid positions, Tom Walkinshaw withdrew the #10 HSV Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV of Larry Perkins (who was suffering from the flu).
* Allan Grice had an unconventional start to his shootout lap, using the escape road at Murrays Corner to gain more speed along pit straight.
