An 18 car field is set to take the starter for the opening Heritage Touring Car round of the season at Wakefield Park this weekend.

The Group A and C machinery will feature at the annual Wakefield Park Summer Historics.

While Terry Lawlor’s GIO Nissan GT-R is likely to be the weekend’s pace-setter, another Skyline will enjoy the lion’s share of attention.

Canberra-based driver Graeme Taylor is giving Murray Carter’s NetComm DR30 its first race in over two decades.

The car had originally run in Everlast colours in 1986 before adopting the black NetComm Intelligent Modems hues the following year.

It was raced by privateers Matt Wacker and later Clive Smith after Carter moved to a Ford Sierra during 1988, making its last Bathurst start the following year.

Taylor purchased the DR30 from Robert Ingram in 2012, undertaking a full rebuild prior to its racing return this weekend.

“Robert stripped it and had the shell resprayed in gloss black and we bought it off him in November 2012 and have been flat out ever since,” explained Taylor.

“I put in a 650 hour rebuild in my garage by myself and then Fred Gibson approached me to have the car under his Gibson Motorsport wing so it spent eight months in Melbourne and came back to me late last year.

“We had a commissioning day at Winton last year with Alan Heaphy and the GMS crew and had a few issues, which is to be expected with a ground-up rebuild like this.

“I ran the car in the Skyline Nationals at Winton and ran four display races and it didn’t miss a beat!

“I’ve wanted this car since I was 17. It’s taken me a good 28 years to be able to get in a position to have it!

“Wakefield Park is my home track, it’s only 40 kilometres down the road and I’ve been running production cars for years there with my wife Jacqui, so I know the track well – but a race car is quite different from a road car.

“It’s not about going out there to try and win a race, we just want to bring the car back out there and have people enjoy seeing it again.”

Following Wakefield Park, selected HTC entries will head to Albert Park for a non-points scoring support act to the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix.

A second non-championship event will be run at Bathurst over Easter, where a 55 car field is expected, before subsequent meetings at Morgan Park, Sydney Motorsport Park (twice), Lakeside and Sandown.

Entry List: Heritage Touring Cars, Wakefield Park