NASCAR in Australia

The American stock car racing category NASCAR raced in Australia from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. After strong initial interest, particularly in Melbourne at Australia's only purpose-built NASCAR style paved oval speedway, the Calder Park Thunderdome, the category collapsed in the early 2000s and has defied several attempts to revive it since then.

Bringing NASCAR to Australia was the creation of four-time Australian Touring Car Championship and Bathurst 500 winner, Bob Jane, whose personal A$54m investment created the Thunderdome at the Calder Park Raceway, modelled on a scaled-down version of the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Australian NASCAR racing was sanctioned by Jane's (AUSCAR – also the name of the second tier category with cars based on the Australian made Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon running 5.0L V8 engines) authority on behalf of NASCAR in America but the relationship between the two was tenuous, and drifted over time.

In 1987 with the completion of the Calder Park Thunderdome extensions the much delayed first NASCAR race late in the 1987 racing season with the first major event, the 1988 Goodyear NASCAR 500 following on February 28, 1988. Initially Winston Cup drivers such as Neil Bonnett, Bobby Allison, Michael Waltrip, Dave Marcis and Kyle Petty visited the Thunderdome but interest waned over time and big name guest drivers were lured from circuit racing to bolster fields. Star touring car drivers Allan Grice and Dick Johnson were both early supporters of the concept, with both travelling to the USA to race in the Winston Cup Series, although success was limited. Another touring car star in Kiwi Jim Richards also raced successfully in NASCAR in Australia.

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