John Bowe - 1986 James Hardie 1000 - Bathurst Top 10 Shootout

John Bowe's first ever Bathurst top 10 shootout lap, on this occasion with the Volvo Dealer team before appearing again in the shootout in 1988 for the Shell team where he'd spend a large part of his career.
All rights and credit goes to Channel 7 Sport, Australia.
For historic and educational purposes only.

[@davidewhite69]

Although a 'new' build for 86, it was almost identical in spec to the 'old' 85 car, yet it was two seconds a lap faster at Bathurst than the old car! JB had been complaining about the rear brakes locking when it first turned a wheel at Sandown two weeks earlier, it took most of the Bathurst race week to find and fix the problem that team manager John Sheppard didnt want to acknowledge, it was only at JB's continual persistence that the cause was found, a faulty master cylinder. The car was as high as forth early in the race, but sadly the car lost quite a few laps after the Aluminium Eggenberger built trick special group a trailing arms broke in half after going over the last hump on conrod, similar to what happened to Walkinshaw's VL SS two years later. Whilst undergoing repairs in the pit JB quipped that he reckoned standard volvo steel trailing arms would have never broken, and that is what was fitted because they had no spare aluminium arms

[@Holden308]

Sheppo was rather autocratic as a team manager. It was his way or the highway, probably even more so than Harry Firth. But the difference between him and Harry was that Harry at least listened to his drivers occasionally about how the cars were behaving on track. Sheppard almost refused to acknowledge that anyone knew more about some aspects of the sport than he did.

[@davidewhite69]

@@Holden308 The Volvo Dealer Team's number one driver, Kiwi and 1986 Australian Touring Car Champion, said exactly that! One of the reasons Robbie quit/was shown the door was Robbie wanted to be involved in the development and setting up of the car, when Robbie told Sheppard this when they were building the second car Sheppard told him he is just a paid driver and to stick to things that he knows.....When Robbie said the car wasnt race ready after not making it to qualifying at Sandown Sheppard sacked him for "criticising and undermining the team"!

[@TouringCarsofAus]

Really enjoying the information and history behind these cars that you both remember. Thanks a lot! Learning a lot from you both lately :)

[@donnypopovski7251]

I'm late to the party. But I appreciate this knowledge.

[@coopermagee8977]

​@@Holden308 I did some work on a house near Sheppard's house, and, had an exchange with him. I'd like to say more, but the defamation laws are stopping me.

[@nnoddy8161]

I wonder whether they had the water injection happening on the qualifying lap?
Sad that Volvo withdrew from Group A in '86. The WTCC in '87 would have been interesting with a fully developed 240T against the E30 M3 and the RS500.

[@colinstewart1432]

Volvos traditionally weigh slightly more than a T 72 Tank making them difficult to handle