By SS Media

Archive shot of the Bullas Mustang at Phillip Island

Dual Touring Car Masters Champion, Gavin Bullas, was yesterday at Phillip Island to test his Mustang ahead of next weekend’s Shannons Nationals event, round two of the Touring Car Masters season.
With crew on hand, the Rain City Racing BOSS Mustang was prepped and ready to go, looking to hit the southern track and set Bullas in a challenging position come race day as the fight for race wins and the title lead heat up.
Bullas took to the circuit for a couple of hot laps, the Mustang settled, and Bullas confident of punching out competitive times, but come lap five of the 4.4km circuit, Bullas charged through the final turn, and that’s where the day’s highlights came to an abrupt and shocking end.
Wildlife has always been a factor at the Phillip Island circuit, the local geese often wandering out to the tarmac edge for a closer look, seemingly not fazed by the machines roaring past. Having noticed the geese on the outside on first passing, Bullas had certainly not expected the well-known pair to be standing right on the track inside the ripple strip as he came around the final turn, accelerating towards the main straight.
The geese and the Mustang didn’t have a chance to react and sadly, those geese will no longer be seen standing at the side of the circuit watching the race action just metres away.
Bullas was taken back by the situation, the heavy impact being heard down pit lane as talk of the Mustang’s fate spread. Sent into a spin on contact, Bullas continued backwards down the main straight still doing some 140kmph as he kept the Mustang off the wall and brought the 580hp muscle car to a stop, the front end destroyed by the impact.
While the #16 BOSS was spot repaired and went back out to post some impressive times given the understeer and damage now in place, Bullas was greatly disappointed with the story of the day explaining;
“I’d seen the geese to the side when I first went out, but hadn’t expected to come around and see them standing right on the circuit leaving me nowhere to go. The thoughts race through your mind on how to get around the situation without destroying the car and injuring yourself, especially with those geese being know to us as racers, to the fans and the locals, but there was no time to react and change lines, and as it was I was lucky to keep the car off the wall and avoid major damage.
It was a big impact, you really felt the shock through the car. The Mustang will be repaired before next weekend’s event, but it’s going to take some searching to find all the parts we need. It’s just sad that we went back to Phillip Island to set up for a great weekend, and to come home having been involved in something like this.”

By SS Media

International contender in the Touring Car Masters, Keith Kassulke is bringing the famed Jim Morton Ford XB Coupe back to life at Phillip Island next weekend after eyeing off the stunning entry last season during Glenn Seton’s short but successful race campaign.
Getting the XB back on the tarmac, Kassulke has completed two successful test days at Winton to get his eye in with his new purchase, one accompanied by reigning series champion John Bowe. It is expected that Kassulke will use this season as a long term test, before completing a full 2013 campaign, when he hopes to be fighting for outright victories, explaining;
“While I am ecstatic with my results in the past year with the HQ, I feel that I can do better and with this new car, I hope to be able to work with it to improve my driving skills and, ultimately, my finishing position to hopefully one day, have a podium finish. I’m now going to debut the XB at Philip Island, no doubt one of the best circuits in Australia, so this next week will be going by very quickly, even with another trip home to PNG before we go racing.
I was impressed from the outset at the build quality of Jim Morton’s XB Falcon so, when it became available for sale, I thought about it for a few months then went to inspect it, and it really is a beautifully built car so full credit to Jim for that.
We had a very good test again yesterday, and after my second day in it, I’m getting a feel for the way it handles now, being quite different of course to my Monaro. With some minor set up changes and with overnight seating, pedal box and steering wheel position changes, I managed a best time of 1.32.4 which I think rates fairly well.”


Kassulke has also been proud to announce support from Air Nuigini, the national airline of this home, Papua New Guinea, meaning things are certainly moving forward for his third season with the series.

Here is one that Matt prepared earlier. There are lots of detail pics and a vid.
Just for interest's sake, the story is about the teams, but the actual cars pictured are DJR chassis 4 and TLR chassis 5, both from the Bowden's collection.
DJR4's debut was the Bathurst 1000 in 1988 as car #17. In qualifying before the Top 10, Johnson was over a second faster than Bowe in a sister car (#28, DJR3) and 1.5secs quicker than Longhurst (who went on to win) in 3rd. DJR4 also led the early stages of the race before the diff failed on Conrod. Incidentally, the #18 car at this race (that finished 2nd) was DJR1.
DJR4 was also car #17 in 1989's ATCC for Dick Johnson's 5th title. This is the livery that it wears today, including the Shell ATCC sticker above the number on the door.
Tony Longhurst Racing's 5th and final Sierra was only used at the end of 1990 before they switched to BMWs. As you can see in the pics it was LHD, and it is easily identified as it was the only one with a gold interior.
Go to the Performance Garage blog post now;
DETAIL PICS AND VID: SIERRA RACE CARS

Carroll Shelby has died aged 89. He passed away in Baylor Hospital in Dallas, Texas last Thursday (10th May).
Born Jan 11, 1923, in Leesburg, Texas, Shelby was a US Army pilot before becoming a racing driver. He retired from driving for health reasons (a leaky heart valve) at the age of 37 and in 1962 he dropped a Ford V8 in an AC Ace to create the AC Cobra.

The AC Cobra launched Shelby on a 50-year career of modifying cars from the original Ford GT40 and the first generation of Mustangs through to other makes including assisting on the development of the Dodge Viper. The AC Cobra is also one of the most regularly-replicated cars of all time, and genuine Shelby machines are extremely collectable, especially the very rare 1965 427ci S/C (semi-competition).

The Shelby name will continue to appear on special Mustangs through Shelby American and their association with Ford. There's a new one on the way that will live up to the legendary performance of even the twin-supercharged AC that Shelby created for himself and comedian Bill Cosby. The track version of the Shelby 1000 Mustang makes 1100hp from its supercharged V8 and costs almost US$200,000 by the time you've bought a "base" GT 500 and put the 1000 package on it.