With NASCAR getting more air time on Australian television largely thanks to the influence of Channel 7 motorsport commentator and Sydney speedway promoter Mike Raymond, in 1981 Jane struck a deal with Bill France Jr., the head of NASCAR, to bring stock car racing to Australia and plans were laid out for a high banked oval adjacent to the existing Calder Park Raceway. A round of the 1987 World Touring Car Championship was held on the Calder Park Grand Prix circuit on 11 October 1987. It was originally known as the Goodyear Thunderdome to reflect the naming rights sponsorship bought by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. These events are sanctioned by ANDRA. Ground first broke for the track in 1983 and it took four years to complete. There are reports that they walked all the way down the Calder Highway back to Melbourne, looting a 7-Eleven on the highway for food. The Thunderdome is a purpose-built 1.8 km (1.1 mi) quad-oval speedway located on the grounds of Calder Park Raceway. For 1981-1984 the race was restricted to Formula Pacifics. The first NASCAR race that used only the oval was the Goodyear NASCAR 500 held on 28 February 1988 (unlike the "500s" in US NASCAR racing, the Australian version was only 500 km, or 310 mi - roughly the same distance as a Busch Series race). The round win was awarded to the highest placed domestic series driver. The inaugural meeting on a bitumen track was run by the Australian Motor Sports Club and took place on 14 January 1962. The National Circuit's long front straight also features a drag strip, which was the home of the Australian National Drag Racing Championship for many years. The bikes were allowed onto the 4° front straight with witches hats (cones) placed on the track to tell riders where the edge of the track was.[3][4]. The first 100 metres of the Drag Strip was resurfaced in 2006 due to irregularities in the start line area, the strip reopened for the Legal Off Street Drag Racing event on Friday 17 November 2006. AUSCAR was unique in that the cars were right-hand drive and based on the Australian Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore. In the early 1970s, champion racer and Melbourne tyre retailer Bob Jane purchased the track. Calder Park Drag Racing run all the regular Drag Racing events at Calder Park. Bonnett won the race in a Pontiac Grand Prix from Allison in a Buick LeSabre and Marcis in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. On 11 October 1987, Calder Park hosted Round 9 of the inaugural World Touring Car Championship on the combined road course and the newly built high banked Thunderdome. Competitors at this meeting included current Calder Park owner Bob Jane (Autoland Jaguar 3.8 #84), Norm Beechey (Holden #40), John Wood (Holden #83) and Peter Manton (Mini Cooper). In a test session prior to the 1988 Goodyear NASCAR 500, NASCAR's "King" Richard Petty, the record holder for the most victories in NASCAR history with 200 career wins and the father of Kyle Petty, set an unofficial lap record for the Thunderdome of 28.2 seconds for an average speed of 142.85 mp/h. More recently, Calder Park introduced drifting events to its impressive list of motorsport activities. Jones also successfully made the transition to NASCAR, winning the Superspeedway Series on his first try in 1994/95. The circuit not only hosted road racing but also drag racing while the infield formed part of the Rallycross track. In a shock to the male dominated establishment, 18-year-old female driver Terri Sawyer won the 110 lap race driving a Holden VK Commodore. Due to the lack of such knowledge in Australia, during construction Jane was forced to bring in engineers from the USA who had experience in building high banked speedway ovals. The concert was fraught with controversy, including reports that security staff had prohibited patrons from bringing their own food, drinks and sunscreen into the venue; this most seriously affected a diabetic teenage girl, whose medication and carefully portioned food were confiscated. This race used the combined road and oval circuits and was won by the Eggenberger Motorsport Ford Sierra RS500 driven by Steve Soper and Pierre Dieudonné. As part of the changes to the circuit, the main straight was lengthened from 700 metres to just under 1 km in length while the final turn (which was known for a long time as Gloweave Corner) was also moved forward approximately 75 metres so that the road course and the start of the drag racing strip were separate (this was due to long time complaints from drivers and bike riders that the start of the main straight was notoriously slippery due to it also being the start of the drag strip, especially in the wet). The strip is still regarded the fastest all-bitumen drag strip in the world,[citation needed] though Drag Racing authority ANDRA national level events were absent for twelve years until 2013 due to a dispute between the governing body and circuit owner Bob Jane.[5]. The buses left the venue shortly after Guns N' Roses performed their final song, leaving many concertgoers stranded. One of those men was Patrick Hawthorn, who at the time owned a petrol station in Clayton, when one of his clients suggested a place to race, on his property. This was some 6/10ths of a second (3.1 mp/h) faster than Bonnett's pole time for the race. NASCAR's most famous last name was also represented with 1987 Coca-Cola 600 winner Kyle Petty making the trip down under. The race saw a heavy crash on lap 80 which took some 6 cars out of the race including Australian's Dick Johnson (Ford Thunderbird) and Allan Grice (Oldmobile Delta 88) who suffered a broken collar bone after hitting Johnson's already crashed car at high speed in the middle of turns 3 and 4. The complex includes a dragstrip, a road circuit with several possible configurations, and the "Thunderdome", a high-speed banked oval equipped to race either clockwise (for right-hand-drive cars) or anti-clockwise (for left-hand-drive cars such as NASCAR). Morgan Shepherd would go on to win the race with a four-second margin over Sterling Marlin, the only two competitors in the event to finish on the lead lap. Unlike NASCAR, the right-hand drive AUSCARs raced clockwise on oval tracks such as the Thunderdome and the ​1⁄2 mile Speedway Super Bowl at the Adelaide International Raceway. It was a 300-kilometre event for Group A touring cars, with John Bowe and Terry Shiel in a turbocharged Nissan Skyline DR30 RS taking first place – to date the only time a Japanese car has won a race held on the Thunderdome.[2]. Phone: 03 9091 0778 Please Note: Calder Park Raceway is Under New Management. The first race on the Thunderdome was held just two weeks after its opening, although the track used incorporated both the Thunderdome and the pre-existing National Circuit. [6] To this day, this was the last ever concert to be performed at Calder Park. The Thunderdome was officially opened by the Mayor of the Keilor City Council on 3 August 1987. On 1 February 1993, Guns N' Roses performed at Calder Park as part of the Use Your Illusion Tour. The first ever Drift Nationals held in March 2004 attracted over 8,000 spectators and added another inaugural event to the long list of new activities nurtured by Calder Park Raceway. It was built at a cost of A$54 million— with Jane personally contributing over $20 million of his own money. For further information on Street Meets, Test & Tunes and Competition Drag Racing visit https://calderparkdragracing.com.au/ or phone 0435 350 915. The weather was very hot on that day, reportedly 42 °C (108 °F), and many concertgoers went to the venue on special shuttle buses. The top five positions all went to those driving either a VK or VL Commodore. The race, known as the Bob Jane T-Marts 500, was won by England's Steve Soper and Belgian driver/journalist Pierre Dieudonné in a Ruedi Eggenberger built Ford Sierra RS500.

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