HTCAV – Lawrie Nelson Profile
A bug carrying a disease for which there is no known cure bit Lawrie Nelson when he was very young. Symptoms included car madness and dreams of being more than just a motor racing spectator in adult life…
Lawrie must have dreamed harder than others. In the late ’60s, fate led him down Warrnambool way in western Victoria, where he met the sister of Frank Lowndes (Craig’s dad). When Frank got a job in Melbourne helping Harry Firth build Cortina GT 500s for Bathurst, he boarded at his new mate’s house, as Lawrie had already been hanging around at Harry’s workshop. With Frank working there, the stars fell into place.
A Touch of Firth
Lawrie’s humble 2-door Falcon Hardtop was being flogged in club sprints, rallies and motorkhanas, but with Frank and Harry’s help, it gained a hot head, 6-inch wide wheels, better springs and improved brakes for its first proper circuit race at Phillip Island in 1969.
Locked out of the circuit campground the night before, Lawrie and his mates met some girls at the Isle of Wight hotel in Cowes, finally making it to the circuit at 5 a.m. on race day with raging hangovers. Last in every race except the handicap, it was a perfect way to begin a racing career spanning almost 50 years…
The ‘Firth Factor’ then kicked in even more when the then new Holden Dealer Team Monaro GTS 350 driven by Hank Wallace/Peter Macrow in the 1969 Mount Panorama enduro came up for sale. For the princely sum of $2,500, Lawrie had a perfect, albeit dented, car to learn the ropes of racecar prep and maintenance.
Two years later, that car was bought from Lawrie while he was competing at Sydney’s Amaroo Park. At that same meeting, Leo Geoghegan told him of a car he was developing for Chrysler Australia: Lawrie and his mate Tom Naughton got on board and were soon among the first to race the new Valiant Charger E38, and later, the E49.
Two podiums in the Australian Touring Car Championships came Lawrie’s way in Chargers: a 2nd at Sandown; and a 3rd at Adelaide Raceway, as well as a Hardie-Ferodo 500 Bathurst drive with previous winner Tony Roberts in 1972.
That ’70s Show
By now, Lawrie was starting to get appearance and travel money in the days when teams and privateers travelled the circuits as good mates, borrowing bits and pieces from each other, whatever badge they were racing.
Legendary Ford driver Murray Carter often carried Lawrie’s Charger interstate and their friendship saw him co-drive Murray’s XA Falcon Hardtop to an outright 7th in the 1973 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 – the second Falcon home after the Moffat/Geoghegan works entry.
In 1974, talks with Ford took place before the factory officially pulled the pin on racing. No matter, as Bob Jane had plans for a second Torana L34, which he’d get Lawrie and Ron Harrop to drive as back up to himself and Frank Gardner. But that car was never built and it seemed Lawrie’s year had come to nothing.
Then Ford race guru Howard Marsden suggested Lawrie attack the 3-Litre Championships in a Ford Capri, firing up the car/driver partnership for which Lawrie is best known today.
Quiet factory help would be “forthcoming”, despite no official involvement on Ford’s part and no Capris on sale. The reason? Ford liked nothing better than nicking points off Holden wherever possible. And nick them Lawrie did, winning several 3-Litre Touring Car Championships and Manufacturers Championships. At the same time, he started Capri Components, the wrecking, repair and parts company he ran for more than 20 years.
Quick Capri, Miserable Mustang
Ford were pleased enough with Lawrie’s results to provide him with a Capri Mk III bodyshell from Europe at the end of the ’70s. The new car, built over 12 months with the help of Tony Farrell and plenty of mates, was driven at Bathurst in 1980. Success eluded Lawrie that year, but 2nd and 3rd in class for other Capris showed their pace.
Bathurst aside, Lawrie’s MkIII was even more successful than his earlier Capris, setting lap records at most circuits around Australia – with the exception of Amaroo Park, where fellow Capri punter Bo Seton, father of Glenn, was tough competition on his home track.
“Bo and I were mates and we shared information all the time for our mutual benefit,” Lawrie says, “That was a great thing about the sport in those days.”
But Lawrie’s memories of his next Ford aren’t quite as rosy.
Group A Mustangs were racing in the UK and Europe in the mid-1980s; Zakspeed had supplied Dick Johnson with two cars. But as with the Sierras, Euro Group A cars were a bit “different”. Sticking instead to the homologated US specs, Lawrie suffered through unreliability, lack of power and weak diffs. It was a tough time.
Ford in the US had no interest in homologating stronger parts, but thankfully, CAMS quietly allowed Lawrie to run alloy heads and a 9-inch diff, the spec that it runs in Heritage Touring Cars today.
After Group A finished, Lawrie raced on with the Mustang, but would later park it for ten years after a mid-’90s Phillip Island scrape.
Return to Capri
As with many older drivers from the day, historic touring car racing held appeal for Lawrie.
In 2007, an agreement with good mate Eddie Dobbs saw Lawrie drive Dobbs’ Torana XU-1 for ten years. By then, Lawrie’s own Capri had been built with “all the best bits money can buy”. The last two years has seen him sorting this car to the point where it is now very quick.
It’s also for sale: 74-year-old Laurie has decided that the Phillip Island Classic next year will be his last event.
“I wanted to stop where I started - I was going to hang on to 2019 for an even 50 years, but it’s the right time now.”
Who’s quibbling? It’s been a great half-century of hounding touring cars round and round race tracks. “I’ve been really lucky,” Lawrie says, “Never had a big budget, just the best connections and the best information. It’s been great.”
So, if a racing Capri built by the legendary Lawrie appeals, drop him an email at [email protected] - you could join the Just Cars Historic Touring Car racing next year!
