Australian Sports Car Championship Round 1, February 1981.

Opening round Sandown Park.
The various rounds were divided into two separate heats at each venue much like the V8s these days. After a very successful 1980 for ProdSports, this opening round was off to a pretty good start with a reasonably strong field. There were, however, only 2 Nagaris in the field, those of Alan Edwards and Barry Main. Strange after the large number of Bolwells that made appearances the year before. It turned out that many of them were caught out by the early start to the season and weren't quite ready.
The reason for writing this is seeing Alan's Bolwell in this photograph in the February 27, 1981 edition of Auto Action.

I recall Alan having a brilliant idea for getting a bit of traction off the line - a bag of cement in the boot. It worked brilliantly and Fitzy didn't know what hit him when he powered past him from behind. Maybe it didn't help the handling department quite as much.

Rusty French was in pretty fine form that day and watching the black Pantera powering through the field was a sight to be seen. He hadn't posted a time in practice and started both heats at the rear of the grid. To be ranging up alongside the Latham 934 was no mean feat.

For this particular season Martin Sampson from Adelaide had purchased the all-conquoring Hamilton Porsche 934 and brought Johnnie Walker out of retirement to drive it. Latham had streaked away to win heat 1 but Walker had come to grips with the red car and took out the second heat. This photo is during the wet first heat  with Latham long gone, Walker leads Mathieson and Fitzgerald.