 Bringing NASCAR to Australia was the creation of four-time Australian Touring Car Championship and Bathurst 500 winner, Bob Jane, whose personal A$54m investment created the Thunderdome at the Calder Park Raceway, modelled on a scaled-down version of the Charlotte Motor Speedway.Australian NASCAR racing was sanctioned by Jane's Australian Stock Car Auto Racing (AUSCAR – also the name of the second tier category with cars based on the Australian made Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon running 5.0L V8 engines) authority on behalf of NASCAR in America but the relationship between the two was tenuous, and drifted over time.In 1987 with the completion of the Calder Park Thunderdome extensions the much delayed first NASCAR race late in the 1987 racing season with the first major event, the 1988 Goodyear NASCAR 500 following on February 28, 1988.