- Robbie Francevic
Robbie Francevic was a
Touring car race car driver inNew Zealand andAustralia in the 1970s and 1980s. He won the inaugural Nissan-Cue 500 (later Nissan Mobil 500) street race inWellington, New Zealand in 1985 driving a Volvo 240 Turbo. A year later he won the 1986Australian Touring Car Championship , becoming the second New Zealander (after Jim Richards) to win the series and recording the first and only win forVolvo .Bathurst 1000
At Bathurst in 1985, Francevic teamed with John Bowe in the Volvo and qualified the car an excellent 5th. A failed alternator diode put them many laps down after initially running a strong 2nd. The car retired on lap 122 when it ran out of fuel. After winning the ATCC, Francevic had a falling out with the Volvo Dealer Team and drove a Ford Sierra XR4Ti to little success in the
1986 James Hardie 1000 with fellowKiwi Leo Leonard and suffering terminal electrical problems on lap 26. He then landed a co-driving role in the 1987 race for Frank Gardner's JPS Team BMW in a BMW M3 finishing 6th outright and 2nd in class with Ludwig Finauer. For 1988 Francevic and long time backer Mark Petch secured a Ford Sierra RS500 fromWalter Wolf Racing in Germany to run in the ATCC but only started 1 race due to illegal build components on the Sierra. These were fixed in time for the1988 Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst where he teamed with German ace, and 1985 winner,Armin Hahne . Overheating finished their race on lap 103 while running well in the top 5 most of the time after qualifying 14th. He teamed with Italian racerGianfranco Brancatelli in the Sierra in 1989, qualifying 15th but didn't get a drive after a wheel fell off the car on lap 14. His last start was in 1990 with fellow Kiwi racerAndrew Bagnall in another Sierra RS500. They qualified 17th and drove well all day to finish 7th outright.Francevic is of
Croat origin.Francevic was an inaugural member of the "MotorSport New Zealand Wall of Fame" in 1994.
External links
* [http://www.motorsport.org.nz/Awards/wallfame.htm MotorSport New Zealand Wall of Fame]
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