The fastest racing car in Australia. Ever.

We're used to hearing about "fastest street car" this, and "most powerful" that. But when it comes to the fastest wheel-to-wheel racing car in Australia, few would know about the Veskanda C1. For this post I'm not including Time Attack cars, as they don't race against other cars, so this advanced grounds-effects-equipped V8-powered rocket built in Adelaide stands as the high-water mark for racing cars in Australia. 

Don't fret if you've never heard of the Veskanda C1. This circuit racing monster was built in the mid 1980s to take on sports car racing, up against turbo Le Mans Porsches, powerful GT-class cars, and hand-built tube-frame prototypes, and it was so fast it ended up being forced to race in Europe. 

It began following the epic FIA Group C sports racing cars come Down Under for the 1984 Sandown 1000km event. Cars like the Rothmans 956 Porsches could crack 400km/h and show any closed wheel (and most open-wheel) racing machinery a set of tail lights around a track, and they were in Australia for a proper race, finally. 

Local lad Bernie van Elsen had Adelaide's K&A Engineering (Harry Aust and Dale Koennecke) build him a closed-cockpit sports racing car to CAMS Group A Sports Cars, FIA Group C and IMSA regs. It was called the Veskanda (Van Elsen Special K AND A). At least it wasn't called the Norblett Dog Poop GTP6969, I guess...

Based around a Lola T400 F5000 single seater, it had an aluminium monocoque with lower wishbones and in-board coilovers up front, while the rear ran multi-links and coilovers. The big secret is the C1 featured full ground-effects aerodynamics, which glued it to the track way better than even F1 cars of the day.

This, for the record, is a Lola T400 - not quite the slow nugget you may have pictured.

Power initially came from the 520hp 5L Lola-Chev V8, but this was updated to a 590hp 350ci Chevrolet as class capacity rules were relaxed for 1986. Even the 5L motor had enough herbs to dominate the Sports Car class when the Veskanda debuted midway through the '85 season with John Bowe driving.

Bowe was just a pup at this stage, having come through single-seaters and just started his journey towards his place as a touring car legend. And he was fearless in the brutally fast Veskanda.

In 1986 the Veskanda was one of the most powerful racing cars on Aussie circuits. JB scored pole at every round, set the fastest lap in every race (a class record each time), won every race, and set outright lap records at Calder Park, Amaroo, and Surfers Paradise - records which still stand over 30 years later.

This thing didn't just win; it demolished.

On top of this, the Veskanda wasn't just "Fast For An Aussie Car". Against 956 Porsches, Saubers, TWR Jags, March, Lolas and all sorts of ground-based missiles of Group C racing, the Veskanda proved it had the speed to run with the big dawgs at the FIA WEC round at Sandown in 1988, where it used a 650hp 6L Chevy V8. While it couldn't match the outright pace of the Mercedes Sauber C9s and Silk Cut TWR Jaguars, it also had a fraction of their budget and support.

The issue was that, by 1988, the local sports car series had collapsed under dominance of big dollar cars like the Veskanda and Bap Romano's WE84/Kaditcha. And it left these amazing pieces of machinery nowhere to race.

As the World Time Attack Challenge has brought ridiculously fast Aussie-built cars back onto the world stage, it should remind us of some of the most mind-bendingly fast tinware we've built Down Under - and cars which raced long distance events, carving through traffic in all weather and with people challenging them for track position.

Still, the question of whether the Veskanda is faster than the RP968 time attack Porsche is one i would love to see answered. Nothing can take away from the fact, however, it is the fastest wheel-to-wheel race car Australia has produced.