Welcome to the sixty-fourth edition of Aussie Stock Car News, the first one for December 2024.

Last week, we talked about the #14 Sportsman, the Botheras family have created a Facebook group that you can look in on the progress of the Sportsman that was formerly an AUSCAR.

They posted some pictures on November 30 and December 2 including the first engine for the Botheras era of the car, and they have 297 members so next week we will likely be reporting that they reached 300, maybe 350, you never know.

AUSCAR #31 has made a new post today, the post details the post Thunderdome life of the car.

The #31 Holden Commodore was one of the ex-AUSCARs used at what was then Wakefield Park now One Raceway before being put out to pasture at Winton, somebody noticed them out there and so began the long process of people buying the cars, a process that had taken years.

There’s a chance in 2025 that out of the cars that sat for a long time at Winton, the #22 Holden Commodore, the #38 Ford Falcon (#77 when at Winton) and the #31 Holden Commodore will be racing together with Stock Cars Australia.

The #7 Ford Falcon was a car that was with the others at Wakefield Park.

Others from that Winton line of cars were an ex-GRM #34 Ford Falcon, the #8 Falcon and the ex-John Agosta #5 Holden Commodore, all were snapped up.

On the research front, as usual we are looking to fill in the blanks of the #3 Lumina known as George, why was this mostly Oldsmobile bodied car sporting two different shades of pink in its lifetime plus the flute pink shade in the interior?

After last week’s edition, we were told in no uncertain terms that it is Walter Giles first Stock Car however we cannot accept that as fact because at this moment it is not a provable fact.

We deal with facts, when somebody tells us something, we’re going to go look for proof to back it up and we haven’t found that anything that that confirms that ‘the #3 was the show car made out of Walter’s very first NASCAR car, with the Buick LeSabre body, and Lumina bumpers‘.

We know Walter Giles had a show car, but we haven’t got good pictures of it to know if it’s the car, we would need photos of pretty much all sides to know because the car would likely be sporting an Oldsmobile rear bumper and a rear window from a Pontiac.

A problem with the theory is that Motorsport News reported that Mark Harrison’s car had the original Walter Giles chassis, further looking into is required.

The Ron Goodman angle is also unprovable at this time, we know he had an Oldsmobile in 1992, we know he got it from George Elliot, we know it was pink, and we know he gave it back to George and we know it is not the #05 Commodore as the chassis of the #10 of Nick Girdlestone was used for that one.

What we don’t know is where it went afterwards, did the #05 Oldsmobile stay with George/NASTRAK until a sale to somebody, somewhere or did George sent it to Brad Jones to be the #8? If anybody knows, let us know.

We’ve done other research this week as curiosity about certain cars got us digging around and we believe that we’ve read Motorsport News right and that Motorsport News was generous enough to not only tell readers about a Chevrolet Lumina that the Brewer’s brought, but a few editions later shown the car to readers.

It is believed that this Lumina went on to serve Fastrack for many years as the orange and black coloured #8.

If it is true, it just proves that appearances can be deceiving as few would have known that it had been an Oldsmobile, it was a Morgan-McClure owned car driven by Ernie Irvan and it was driven in Australia by Dick Trickle (though it was 1990 not 1991?) and later by Ian Thomas.

Stay tuned in a couple of days for ‘The Joys and Agonies of Car Research’ telling you all about the processes and the highs and lows of figuring out cars from the hard to crack cases to the easy ones.

Don’t forget owners and drivers that if you want any news published, send a message before every Friday night and it will be written in, it can be from car development to research to just the fact the vehicle got polished or a dent was fixed.

If you’re looking to buy a vehicle or are selling a vehicle, the same applies, send in the details before every Friday night and it will be written in.

See you next week.