Nederlands Toerwagen Kampioenschap

Bad Time - 1983 index


Group A was accepted now, but old cars could keep racing. The result was only one brand new Escort RS 1600i, which had a very unlucky season, and a lot of cars from the past years, sometimes dating back to 1976. All classes were combined to one race now, and the only bright points were two guest appearances of real Group A cars: TWR Rovers. The only driver with more than national ambitions, Kees Kroesemeijer, did race his Scirocco occasionally but preferred the outside world in the form of Group C apearances for Kannacher and Kremer. So all in all a season to forget, though I'm happy "Autorensport" had a better coverage in 1983 - I even got the points table right.
So who were the lucky ones, the champions? Bijster's 1300 cc title was secure after the fifth race, and he promptly quit and let his mechanic race the last two rounds. Van der Beek's 2500 cc title could have been sealed even earlier, but some homologation troubles took time to sort out. In the end, it was all clear and the Mazda won all of its seven races. The 1600 cc class, in the absence of Kroesemeijer now went to Bolderheij who got it sealed after the sixth race - the last race he could experiment with a 1.8 engine in the 2500 cc class. The last champion was Loek Vermeulen with his faithful Camaro, leading two others in the championship.
It was time for some new cars; the Group 1B years had shown that the Dutch championship could be spectacular and competitive with the rest of Europe - could those times ever be revived?

The races:

The cars

Final classification

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