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The HSRCA’s 2025 Spring Festival at One Raceway is coming up this weekend, August 30 & 31, and will feature under 3-litre Group C & A touring cars in the inaugural running of Class Wars. It’s looking to be a chilly last weekend of winter, but Heritage Touring Cars will bring the heat.
One Raceway is the perfect venue for the Class Wars, reopened back in February boasting extensive upgrades and an updated layout that suits these cars to a tee – plenty of elevation change, challenging corners and little emphasis on long straights.
The event will feature sixteen of the smaller capacity Legends, with half of the drivers coming from interstate – five from Victoria and three from Queensland. David Towe in his iconic Group A JPS BMW M3 and Scott Robinson in the ex-Tony Longhurst JPS BMW 325i will stare down an impressive turnout of Group C cars. A big thanks to our competitors, particularly those journeying from interstate, for the great response to this initiative, which is set to show off the incredible diversity and competitiveness of the under 3-litre cars.
We’ll have two Mazda drivers making their debut at the meeting. We’re thrilled to see Lloyd Williams’ Mazda RX3 restoration complete and looking forward to seeing both in action on track. Cody Brewcynski will be on board Carey McMahon’s also recently restored Yellow Pages Mazda RX7.
Ford’s mighty Escort will be well represented in Goulburn, with Tony Alford, Jason Delaney, Adil Jemali, Russell and Greg Keam, Cole Spender and Derek Wickett all running the touring car icon. This may well be the first time that seven Group Escorts have competed side by side since the period.
Adil Jemali made his Heritage Touring Cars debut at Morgan Park back in May and we’re pleased to see him out for his second run, as we are to welcome father and son duo Russell and Greg Keam back after a few years away while Greg was competing in the TA2 muscle car racing series. Both have been regular competitors in historic Group C for many years, with Greg to pilot a Bob Holden RS2000 Escort on the weekend.
Derek drives a Roger Cartwright 1976 Escort, which was campaigned in 1979 and 1980 at Bathurst and 1980 at Sandown and Calder Park. Following an accident at Forest Elbow in 1979, the car was sent to Peter Fowler to be rebuilt to the same technical and mechanical spec as the all-conquering Brian Wood Escorts of the time. Following the rebuild they ran second in class at Bathurst before transmission issues forced them to an early retirement. The car has run in Group C trim since 2003, and has been in Derek’s hands for nearly 30 years.
From Japan we have a Nissan Pulsar EXA Turbo piloted by Justin Nilsson and an Isuzu Gemini in Gavin Adamson’s capable hands. Holden will be represented by David Holland and Stephen Axisa, both on board Torana XU1s.
Both David Holland and Nathan Gordon are set to drive cars piloted by their fathers in period. David’s Torana originally belonged to his father Don, who raced at Bathurst 17 times, including pedalling this car to fifth in the 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500. Nathan’s dad Gil drove their Alfa Romeo GTV 2000 at Bathurst during a similar period of the 1970s.
The HSRCA are offering free entry to all spectators for the 2025 HSRCA Spring Festival. The circuit will be open from 8:30am, with racing kicking off at 9:00am each day and running through to the early afternoon. Group C & A will be out for qualifying around 10:00am on Saturday morning, then again for race one just before lunch. Race two will run later that afternoon. On Sunday we’ll be out twice, with a handicap race mid morning and final race of the weekend mid afternoon.
One Raceway is one of the best spectator circuits in New South Wales, if not the country, with excellent visibility from most vantage points around the track. And of course, historic motor sport offers similarly good access to the cars and stars, so take some time to wander the pits and paddock, say ‘Hi!’ and see the cars up close.
If you can’t make it in person, Blendline TV will be covering the whole meeting live with their premium subscription. Click here for Saturday’s stream and here for Sunday’s. The streams will be archived following the event, so you can catch them any time as long as you have a subscription.
For more information, including the entry list and programme of events, see the HSRCA site here.
