The 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned Australian motor racing title open to Group 3A Touring Cars. The championship, which was the 30th Australian Touring Car Championship, began on 5 March at Amaroo Park and ended on 9 July at Oran Park Raceway after eight rounds. The 1989 Australian Manufacturers' Championship was contested over the same eight round series.
The championship, which was promoted as the Shell Ultra Australian Touring Car Championship, was won by Dick Johnson driving a Ford Sierra RS500. Toyota won the Australian Manufacturers' Championship.
Teams and drivers
The following drivers and teams competed in the 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship.
Season review
Following on from their dominant 1988 championship 1-2, the Dick Johnson Racing Ford Sierra RS500 drivers Dick Johnson and John Bowe again finished 1-2 in the title race, winning the first six rounds with Johnson's fifth (and last) championship win equaling the record of Ian Geoghegan. Like Geoghegan, all of Dick Johnson's championships were won driving Fords.
The championship also saw long time Holden driver Peter Brock turn to Fords (after a year with BMW) in a bid to return to the top in Australia with two cars secured from British Sierra expert Andy Rouse for himself and Albury based driver Brad Jones. Brock's pole in Round 2 at Symmons Plains was his first touring car pole since the 1986 Sandown 500, while his win in the final round at Oran Park was his first ATCC win since 1986 and his first ever ATCC win in anything other than a Holden. Brock in his Mobil 1 Racing Sierra would prove to be the Shell team's most consistent challenger, finishing third in the championship, his highest placing since he finished third in 1985. Most observers felt that Brock adapted to the powerful Sierra's quicker than most, though he readily admitted his link with Rouse and the technical help he gave was a big factor in the Mobil teams revival. Also, unlike most of his fellow competitors when they started racing the Sierra's, Brock wasn't a stranger to racing turbocharged cars having raced a Porsche 956B at Silverstone and Le Mans in the 1984 World Sportscar Championship.
Other driver/team changes in 1989 included a new Ford Sierra team for former Nissan driver Glenn Seton who took Nissan's Peter Jackson cigarette sponsorship with him to his new team. Also switching from Nissan was his father Barry Seton who became the chief engine builder for his sons new team. 1988 Tooheys 1000 winner Tony Longhurst expanded his Benson & Hedges Racing to a two car team with a second Sierra for former JPS Team BMW teammate Neville Crichton. The two B&H cars had been acquired from the Wolf Racing Australasia team formerly run by Robbie Francevic and his long-time patron Mark Petch. Colin Bond also expanded his Caltex-backed Sierra team to two cars, running a second for Sydney car dealer Ken Mathews who had purchased the Bathurst winning Sierra from Longhurst. For the first time in Australian Group A, BMW wasn't represented by one of the top teams which prompted BMW Australia to pull out. The M3 was reduced to a class runner and it was left to privateers John Cotter and his regular co-driver Peter Doulman running one of the ex-JPS/Mobil M3's purchased from Brock at the end of 1988 to keep a BMW presence on the grid.
1989 also saw the last ATCC round win for long time factory Nissan driver George Fury when he took victory in Round 7 at the tight Winton circuit in rural Victoria in what proved to be the most competitive race of the championship. In fact, when Peter Brock led at the end of lap one at Winton it was actually the first time since Round 6 in 1988 at Lakeside that someone other than Dick Johnson or John Bowe had led the first lap of an ATCC race (on that occasion it was the Sierra of Andrew Miedecke leading as Johnson had been pinged for a jump start, though Johnson led on the road). Fury, who had been with the team since its inaugural year in 1981, was joined in the Nissan team by 1985 and 1987 champion Jim Richards, and the teams 1987 Australian 2.0 Litre champion Mark Skaife, each driving a turbocharged Skyline HR31 GTS-R. The Skyline, which had been late arriving in 1988 and had run short of development, was more of a force in 1989 with the team finding greater power and reliability from the turbocharged 6 cyl 2.0L twin cam engine as well as getting the cars down to the Nissan's weight limit of 1100 kg, some 70 kg lighter than 1988. Skaife made his first appearance of the series at the Mallala circuit in South Australia for Round 5, and avoided the first corner carnage (caused by an out of control Brock) to finish a fine fifth.