pre-race favourites along with the Tom Walkinshaw Racing Jaguar XJS', as it was thought the turbocharged Volvo was the only car capable of matching the speed of the V12 powered Jaguars. After a strong early showing in the race in which Francevic had held second for some time behind early leader Tom Walkinshaw, a failed alternator diode put them many laps down. The car finally retired on lap 122 when it ran out of fuel on the run up Mountain Straight. After winning the 1986 ATCC and his much publicised falling out with the Volvo Dealer Team, Francevic drove Andy Rouse's former British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) winning Ford Sierra XR4Ti for former Volvo team owner Mark Petch to little success in the 1986 Bathurst 1000 with fellow Kiwi Leo Leonard, the car suffering terminal electrical problems on lap 26. Rather boldly, Francevic publicly predicted the turbo Ford would take pole position for the race, but the Kiwi pairing could only manage 21st on the grid with a time of 2:23.05 after a troubled practice and qualifying trying to get the car to run properly (despite the car being almost trouble free in pre-race testing). The time was 5.89 seconds behind the pole winning time set by Gary Scott's Nissan Skyline, and was 6.89 seconds slower than the Commodore of Allan Grice who set provisional pole time in qualifying. Francevic made his bold claim after the speed that the 2.3 litre turbocharged Sierras had shown in the FIA Touring Car Championship in Europe raced by Eggenberger Motorsport, and by the fact that Rouse had used the car to win the 1985 BTCC. After sitting out most of 1987 without a drive, Francevic was drafted by Frank Gardner to co-drive the second of the JPS Team BMW's M3s at the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000, which (Bathurst) for 1987 had become a round of the World Touring Car Championship. Driving with the team's engine builder come driver Ludwig Finaur, Francevic finished fifth at Sandown before going on to his best ever Bathurst finish with sixth outright and second in class. During the race rain storms that hit late at Bathurst, Francevic, unable to see through a fogged up windscreen, accidentally ran over a pit lane marshal when coming into the pits, thankfully without any injury reported. The marshal wrote an official complaint to the race stewards over the incident, but due