Real racing!

Racing Rods
Celebrating Bruce McLaren
By Greg Stokes

Punchline – any hot rodder that wouldn’t have appreciated the NZ Festival of Motor Racing needs to have their head read! Simply put, the two weekend festival at Hampton Downs one week and then Pukekohe the following was the red blooded hot rodder’s fix to circuit racing. Celebrating the life of Bruce McLaren, the sight and sound of the biggest fields ever of Formula 5000’s and Can Am Cars was truly sensational as these stack injected V8 engine powered lightweight’s rumbled, burbled and cackled on down shifts, their way round the two well known race tracks. For most people young and old it was a first time glimpse as to how racing really was – seat of your pants action before computer controlling and political correctness came to play to give diluted racing that we think is cool today.

Supporting classes included the Historic Class where two stand out cars were the 1959 Old Yeller 2 Buick Special built by Max Balchosky in the USA and the twin supercharged 1935 Alfa Romeo Tipo with torsion bar suspension and lots of elaborate fabrication and flair. The Historic Class also featured many Ford Flathead powered specials as well as local cars such as the Stanton Corvette, the Lycoming Special, Gee Cee Ess Special with the mix of cars coming from New Zealand, Australia, UK and USA. The Old Yeller 2 however, stood out from a hot rodder’s perspective as it was one of the few hot rods that went road racing in the fifties in the USA and created quite a history with legends such as Carroll Shelby and Dan Gurney sliding behind the wheel.

The Old Yeller 2 is one of nine cars built and the third car is always on display at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles. Owned by Ernie and Elaine Nagamatsu from the USA, the car is displayed with a complete photo history and still runs a big Buick Nailhead engine and eagle eye hot rodders will also spot the ’50 Pontiac tail lights.

Also of great interest to hot rodders was the 1960’s & 1970’s Saloons and GT’s classes where cars such as the Sidechrome Hillman Imp and the Cologne Capri’s are racing with the likes of the Ivan Segedin Fleetwood Mustang and Dale Mathers prepared Mustangs ranging from BOSS 302 fast backs to GT-350’s. Not to mention the Trans Am style AMC Javelin of the Stacey Family and also the Robbie Francevic driven “Custaxie”. Truly the golden years of motoring are celebrated with this event, and why not? The UK have the Goodwod Festival of Speed and the USA has similar events at Laguna Seca and Monterey.

Naturally the Bruce McLaren Trust had a great display with memorabilia and also apparel available and it was also the most impressive display of McLaren race cars ever collated. Again, of interest to hot rodders is the fact that Duncan Fox & Tony Roberts have for a number of years preserving McLaren cars and vintage race cars for a world wide market. For a while the metalshaping talent of Mike Roberts was also employed for the fastidious craftsmanship required along with the CNC machining capabilities of John Parker. Their efforts have strengthened the celebration of all old historic race cars and has put New Zealand on the map within those circles carrying on from where Bruce McLaren left off.

Put the last two weekends aside in 2011 as the NZ Festival of Motor Racing returns to celebrate Chris Amon.