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pport of the local Holden v Ford race cars, the international rules had arrived. Channel Seven Sport did a great job with the pre-race build up stories, 1988 the year they featured Doug Mulray which added a lot of fun to the telecast, enjoy this blast from the past! All credit Channel 7 Sport. Controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Tooheys_1000 On the Friday afternoon immediately at the close of final qualifying, Holden Special Vehicles driver Tom Walkinshaw lodged a formal protest against the leading Australian Ford Sierras, targeting all three Dick Johnson Racing (DJR) cars, along with the Tony Longhurst and Colin Bond entries. Curiously no European-built Fords (or those with some European build/driver connection) were protested, Walkinshaw claiming it was only the Australian cars as they were the fastest, despite the presence of the Eggenberger Motorsport built Allan Moffat ANZ Sierra as 4th fastest qualifier (faster than Bond and the 3rd DJR entry). Also left alone in the protest was the Sierra's of team mates Andrew Miedecke (5th in a car with a technical link to Andy Rouse, while Miedecke's co-driver at Bathurst was Steve Soper) and Andrew Bagnall (7th set by co-driver Pierre Dieudonné), and the Team CMS Sweden Sierra (10th). The feeling among the protested Australian Sierra teams was that the protest was designed to severely disrupt their race preparations, with only Longhurst's team able to get their Sierra somewhere near its pre-protest speed. All three teams had to pull their cars engine's and suspension apart after Friday's qualifying for the scrutineers before having to put them back together again before Saturday's Tooheys Top Ten. This was particularly disruptive for Dick Johnson's team as they had all three of their cars protested, despite the #18 car only qualifying 12th compared to Johnson's pole and John Bowe in 2nd. The protest prompted DJR team owner Johnson to say at a press conference that Walkinshaw would "Protest against the cut in his bagpipes if he could" and that "All he wants to do is win and he doesn't care how he does it". The Walkinshaw protest was countered by DJR team manager Neal Lowe who protested the three HSV team Holden Commodores, calling on his knowledge of the Commodore from his time with the old Holden Dealer Team in 1986. The counter-protest by DJR focused on the front air dam, steering rack and the size of the rear spoiler on only the factory backed Commodores. On race day, Walkinshaw advised the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) and FISA officials that should one of the protested cars win the race, his protest against that car was to be immediately withdrawn. His reasons given for this was so that the winner would be known on the day rather than months later, as had been the case with the 1987 race. Ultimately the Walkinshaw protests were found to be invalid and was dismissed. The HSV Team cars had been entered by Perkins Engineering and not by TWR, therefore the Scot had no authority to lodge a protest and the stewards of the meeting erred in allowing it to proceed, though all of the Sierras were eventually cleared by FISA. However, the damage was done to the leading Australian Fords and it was only race winners Tony Longhurst Racing who managed to get their car back up to speed after being dismantled by scrutineers on the Friday before the Top 10 run off. In an ironic twist, the DJR protest against two of the three HSV team cars (only the Perkins built cars and not the TWR British built Walkinshaw/Jeff Allam car) was successful with the modifications made to the cars steering racks found to be illegal. Ultimately the Australian Racing Drivers Club saw no need to change the results to show the cars as disqualified as the spare HSV Car (#40) was only driven in Wednesday's practice session, while the Larry Perkins/Denny Hulme/Walkinshaw #10 car, as well as the #20 Walkinshaw/Allam car both failed to finish. The fact that the Perkins built cars were disqualified and the Sierra's were cleared raised some eyebrows as during the 1988 Australian Touring Car Championship, Larry Perkins had been vocal that the Sierra's were running illegally and was pushing for CAMS to enforce the rules.