156 racing in Thailand

[Doug Gould]

156's on the track at Bira. Bira is a very nice circuit which I describe as a cross between Mallala & Winton. Its about 20 min drive inland from Pattaya. Not sure what the event is, probably an Alfa Club thing. The photo is from a photographer that I know there.

[colcol]

Thanks for that Doug, they all look pretty standard, they still have their rego plates as it should be, drive the car to the track, sprint all day, and then drive home, just like the old days, good looking cars those 156's, Colin.

[Doug Gould]

There are not many Alfa's on the road. I don't think 159's were sold there, but you semi-regularly see selespeed 156's. Manuals were not imported. There is an ALFA Club and there are some pretty special old Alfa's lurking somewhere. I'm sure this was an Alfa Club thing with road cars. A week or so there was a Lotus drive day. I sent that photo to Andrew. Circuits are much cheaper and easier to use in Thailand and not encumbered with CAMS type over-regulation. So lots more things happen. There would be some sort of activity at Bira every day of the year (except maybe for Songkran).  I'm sure this is part of the reason that the Thai community is more engaged with racing than in Australia.There are starting be be a few Aussies / New Zealanders that are leaving cars in Thailand and flying into Thailand for races as an alternative to dealing with level of cost & obstructiveness from our regulator. I suspect that running the Thai supercar series would be cheaper than running a National series here.

[colcol]

I hope CAMS read this, in the old days of 25 years ago, accidents were caused by people over doing it, not by people not being quality endorsed after doing a CAMS training event, the EBC-RDA BRAKES 6 hour at Winton seems to run ok without CAMS involvement, Colin.

[ProvaRacing]

I don't know if you know this, Doug, but the 156 was destined to be assembled in Rayong for Asian markets, indeed the process was subcontracted to the GM plant that was building the 7 seater Opel ZAFIRA (based on Astra chassis) that was to be rebadged as Subaru and Holden. However when I was there they told me they won the contract but at that time the project had not started. I lost track and don't know if it ever did.

Here the launch in Thailand;

And yet another place Alfisti race...

[colcol]

To quote wikipedia,"The Alfa Romeo 156 [known internally as the type 932] is a compact exeutive car introduced by Italian automaker Alfa Romeo at the 1997 Frankfurt motor show as the replacement for the Alfa Romeo 155. Cars were assembled at Fiat group factory in Pomigliano d' Arco, Italy and General Motors facility in Raygon, Thailand, [production in Thailand started March 2002 and lasted a couple of years, cars were targeted for Asia Pacific markets]. Between 1997 and 2005, 680,000 examples of the 156 were produced, a huge success for the brand", Colin.