The Early Years
In 1964 Sportsmans were born, they were basically cut down versions of cars from the era, using side-valve ford engines and steel bodies.
Super Modifieds began in 1970s which used V8 engines such as the 283 cu in (4,640 cc) Chev and 272 cu in (4,460 cc) customline engines. This division soon turned into sprintcars in the mid 70's. Standard sportsmans however continued to use smaller six-cylinder engines.
During 1980s there became another tear-away division called Limited Sportsman's, these were mainly run in the Wimmera and Mallee regions and are still quite a strong class today in Western Victoria and across the border into South Australia.
NOS Sprints however continued to use more and more sprintcar components such as quick-change diffs and chrome-moly custom built chassis. It was around the year 2000 where Open sportsman's decided to change race-direction to further utilise second hand parts from Sprintcars. This change has been very beneficial to the class. During this year there was the introduction of the Buick V6 engine to phase out the currently used Holden and Ford inline six-cylinder motors.It is important to note, that the political shift from Open Sportsman, which were a VSC (Victorian Speedway Commission) sanctioned class, to breaking away to from NOS Sprints under the SCCA was due to a desire by the controlling group of competitors within Victoria wishing to exclude the competition of the 4.0-litre Ford inline six which was due to be given full competition approval, after a two-year trial by one competitor to prove it to be cost effective and fair competition to the Buick/Holden motor. This one key point, of banning all other makes of engine, whilst not necessarily making it any more cost effective, does separate it from other more highly rated speedway classes such as F500 (600cc microsprints) and sprintcars. As of season 2007–2008, NOS Sprints will have phased out the inline motors completely, sticking with stock standard VN-VR Commodore engines.
Read more about this topic: Open Sportsman
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