Carter Re-United With XE Falcon For PI Classic

MELBOURNE – February 24, 2011: Australia’s longest-competing racing driver Murray Carter, will celebrate his 63rd continuous year in the sport by racing his former Bathurst XE Falcon at this year’s Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport from March 18-20.

Carter, who turned 80 on January 30, will campaign the car now owned by Sydney’s Chad Parrish amongst the record field of 41 Group C and Group A car entered for the 2011 meeting.

But Murray won’t be alone amongst Bathurst veterans competing at this year’s ‘Classic.

1966 Gallagher 500 winner Bob Holden, who is now 78 and similarly cut his competition teeth on an MG TC three years after Carter in 1952, will be one of his Group C rivals at the wheel of his well-known 1982 Ford Escort MkII.

Meanwhile 1965 Armstrong 500 winner Barry ‘Bo’ Seton – who raced at Bathurst 22 times in succession between 1963 and 1984 – is another racing legend competing at the Phillip Island meeting.

Seventy-four year-old Seton will be driving his V6 Capri GT in the hotly contested Under 3000cc Group N races at Phillip Island that have attracted an over-capacity grid of cars, like many of the historic categories at the meeting.

A number of other well-known racing veterans who started their racing careers in the 1950s will also be seen in action at Phillip Island, such as 76 year-old Brian Sampson, whose career highlight is his 1975 Bathurst 1000 victory as Peter Brock’s co-driver. Sampson will be seen at the ‘Classic racing his 1984 Lola Formula Ford.

Other well-known septuagenarians competing include Ted Brewster, who is still racing Minis more than 40 years on, John Mann, who will be racing his famous Group N Historic Mustang for the final time before retiring, Jim ‘Stumpy’ Russell, who is racing his Ford V8 Special in the J,K & Lb events and Bill Prowse, who will be amongst the 67 enthusiasts entered for the meeting’s Regularity events in his Alfa-engined1968 Ricciardi Spyder.

However Murray Carter’s 63 years on the racetrack is an unchallenged record and he has no intention of being overtake, having recently purchased a new Corvette ZO6 for Marque Sports Car racing.

“Why stop when you’ve still having fun?” he asks rhetorically.

Thirty years ago, he and fellow privateer battler Garry Wilmington both played crucial roles in homologating the XD Falcon for Group C competition in the face of Ford’s disinterest in seeing the boxy new model race.

Dick Johnson recalls watching Carter and Wilmington on TV as they raced their new XDs in the opening round of the 1980 Australian Touring Car Championship at Symmons Plains and was inspired to develop his own Falcon.

That first car ended in tears after Johnson’s infamous ‘rock’ incident that took him out of the lead of the 1980 Bathurst 1000, but he returned in 1981 for a fairytale victory with Queensland’s John French in his new Tru Blu Falcon.

French is the official Patron of the 2011 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport.

Carter completed 89 more laps of Mount Panorama than Johnson did in 1980, but was not classified as a finisher. He was running seventh in 1981 when a stub-axle broke just four laps before the big McPhilamy Park multi-car accident that stopped the race.

1982 was Carter’s last Bathurst 1000 in a Falcon V8, but his and Rusty French’s race in the latest XE model he will race again at the Phillip Island Classic 29 years later lasted just 25 laps before engine problems sidelined them.

The 2011 Philip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport has attracted an entry of nearly 500 racing, sports and touring cars spanning eight decades, along with hundreds of special display cars.

It is being organised for the 22nd year by the Victorian Historic racing Register and will again be supported by Shannons, CoolDrive and Penrite