Australian Nations Cup Championship

Paul Stokell won the2003 and2004 titles driving aLamborghini Diablo GTR
Category	Sports Car Racing Production Car Racing
Country	Australia
Inaugural season	2000
Folded	2004
Last Drivers' champion	Paul Stokell

The Australian Nations Cup Championship was a motor racing title sanctioned by theConfederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) from 2000 to 2004.

In the absence of theAustralian GT Championship (which had not been run since1985), Nations Cup became the top CAMS sanctioned championship in Australia for GT style cars. It evolved from the GT Production category, which was created in 1995 by category managersPROCAR Australia. For 2000, PROCAR split theAustralian GT Production Car Championship into two separate series so that the more exotic GT cars such asPorsche 911s,Ferrari 360s andLamborghini Diablo's could compete in the new Australian Nations Cup Championship and the lesser vehicles such as theMitsubishi Lancers,Subaru Imprezas andHSV's could now compete for outright wins in the revised Australian GT Production Car Championship.

The cars that regularly competed in the Nations Cup Championships included:^[1]

All cars in the Nations Cup Championship were required to use the engines that came with the various road going models, with the exception of theHolden Monaro. In 2002 in an effort to have an Australian car manufacturer competing in the top category and to have them competitive rather than just making up the numbers, PROCAR allowedHolden to use the 7.0 litre, 427 cuiGM LS6V8 engine (as used successfully atLe Mans in theChevrolet CorvetteC5-R andC6-R's) instead of the 5.7 litreGen III V8 as used in the Monaro CV8 road cars. This caused some controversy as it was felt that allowing Holden to use a larger engine than available in the road cars gave them an advantage over their rivals, with some fans feeling that this decision was a big factor in the eventual demise of the series. PROCAR's given reason was that it allowed the Monaro's to better compete with theV12 andV10 engine cars as well as the lighterV8 andH6 (flat-six) cars.

During practice for the PROCAR run2002 Bathurst 24 Hour race, triple Nations Cup champion and seven timeBathurst 1000 winnerJim Richards labelled the Monaro as a"Better V8 Supercar" (even though its fastest time around theMount Panorama Circuit would be some 7 seconds slower than a V8 Supercar at the time), while NC regular and veteran driverJohn Bowe said that while he had no problems racing against the car, he believed the 7.0 L Monaro was against the spirit of the rules.

Other cars that were eligible to race in Nations Cup, but rarely (if ever) did included theMosler MT900R,BMW M3 GTR,Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R andLotus Esprit.

With the demise of PROCAR during 2004, CAMS revived theAustralian GT Championship in2005 (the first time the championship was run in 20 years) and the series was merged into the grids of the Australian Porsche Drivers Challenge, itself a class of refugees left over after theAustralian Carrera Cup Championship replaced the former Porsche Cup. The regulations differed and not all Nations Cup cars were eligible to race in the GT series, the controversial Holden Monaro 427C the most notable such example.

The top three placegetters in these five championships were:

• CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, 2001 to 2006
• Official Program, Clipsal 500 Adelaide, 7–9 April 2000

• Australian Nations Cup Championship
• Procar Australia
• 2000 establishments in Australia
• 2004 disestablishments in Australia
• Sports leagues established in 2000

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• Use Australian English from April 2011
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