JUNE 29, 1986 isn’t a date that Gary Scott remembers fondly, as the latest edition of Ryco Rewind recalls.
The second-generation racer was in the middle of a tumultuous season with Nissan’s factory touring car team.
Scott had joined it during the closing days of the Group C era, serving as the number two driver behind George Fury in the team’s awesome Bluebirds during the 1984 season.
But he spent 1985 entirely on the sidelines, with Nissan’s Australian team waiting for head office to homologate its exciting new turbocharged DR30 Skyline for Group A touring car competition.
The team had one Skyline ready in time for the start of the 1986 Australian Touring Car Championship, the potency of which Fury demonstrated in the opening rounds at Amaroo and Symmons Plains.
However, Scott remained on the sidelines despite the completion of a second Skyline for Round 3 at Sandown, with driving duties of the team’s #15 entry given to rising star Glenn Seton.
Scott eventually got behind the wheel for his home round at Lakeside, the eighth round out of 10 in the 1986 season, by which time the championship chase was a straight fight between Fury and Volvo driver Robbie Francevic.
The Queenslander played the perfect teammate role, muscling his way back from running wide on the opening lap to finish second behind Fury, allowing the Talmalmo farmer to trim fourth-placed Francevic’s lead to 21 points.
The penultimate round at Winton fell on June 29, and Scott remained behind the wheel of the #15 Skyline.
On the Saturday he used it to claim what proved to be the only pole position of his ATCC/SC career, 0.1s clear of reigning champion Jim Richards’s BMW 635CSi, with Peter Brock third and Fury fourth, 0.4s down on his teammate.
Sunday’s race delivered an awkward situation for Scott.
He beat Richards off the start to lead into the first corner while Fury slotted into third, but the black and gold BMW ranged up alongside as they raced towards the sweeper.
Scott held his nerve and emerged in the lead, but Fury just missed out on following his teammate through into second place.
It was Fury’s sole chance to pass the BMW, and Scott and Richards soon checked out at the front of the field.
Realising there was no way to neatly orchestrate a swap with his teammate without conceding the lead to Richards, Scott began to pull out a race-winning lead and managed fading tyres to beat the BMW to the chequered flag by a second, with Fury a further 12 seconds adrift in third.
But if you look at the record books, it is Richards that is listed as the winner of the 1986 Winton round, not Scott.
Post-race scrutineering found a minor discrepancy in the #15 Nissan’s front brakes; the pistons in the front calipers were slightly larger than the homologated size.
The penalty was immediate exclusion from the race, stripping Scott of what proved to be his sole opportunity to win an ATCC/SC race.
It’s still a fact that rankles with Scott, who talked about his time with the Nissan team during his chat to the V8 Sleuth Podcast in 2022.
The Nissan squad didn’t appeal the ruling and fielded only Fury at the Oran Park finale, where he won the race but lost the title to Francevic by five points.
Incidentally, had Scott abandoned the Winton win to Richards and dropped to third behind Fury, and Nissan found a way to successfully appeal the exclusion, then Fury would’ve won the title on a countback of race wins…
This story is the latest in our series of Ryco Rewind stories as we take a look back through Australian motorsport history and explore the great races, drivers and cars from the past on the relevant anniversary.
