Guest of honour Howden Ganley celebrated his F1, Le Mans and F5000 career with fellow racers Tim Schenken, Teddy Pilette and Vern Schuppan at the sixth Gulf NZ Festival of Motor Racing – but it was the on-track performances that stole the show at Hampton Downs. Mark Holman reports.
New Zealand’s evergreen Kenny Smith (now in his 73rd year) won all three F5000 races in his Lola T332, setting a new lap record for the class in the process. As well as a number of Lolas and McRaes, five locally owned McLarens featured in the resurgent class – Tony Roberts' high-wing M10A was a particular highlight.
Sadly, a big crash on the first lap of Sunday's preliminary race resulted in severe damage to a number of cars, including Tim Rush's McLaren M22. However, that still left 19 F5000s, plus 'Robs' Lamplough's BRM P160 to take the start for the 15 lap feature event.
Clark Proctor made life a bit easier for Smith by beaching his March 73A on lap one, while the latter ran out a clear winner by five seconds from Steve Ross's McRae GM-1 and the Surtees TS11 of Greg Thornton, who has been a consistent supporter of the Festival and brought two cars over from the UK.
California's Travis Engen had a successful weekend, taking wins in his Lotus 23B and Chevron B17B. The Formula Junior grids included seven New Zealand-owned front-engined cars making a race within a race; a locally built FMZ, Gemini Mk2, Volpini, Emeryson-Elfin, Auto Sud, Lola Mk2 and Walter Findlay's lovely Elva-DKW running better than it has for a while.
Trans-Tasman rivalry was particularly strong in the Muscle Car/Trans-Am races, for which an impressive group of eight came over from Australia. Honours were pretty even, although Ian Woodward's Pontiac Firebird leading an Aussie one-two-three in one of the races was a dominant performance.
Off the track, Howden Ganley launched his autobiography (The Road to Monaco) and was joined at an enjoyable dinner to celebrate his successful driving career.
Generally hot weather, some stunning static display cars, such as a Wolf-Dallara Can-Am and a Stanley-BRM P207, and the sheer variety of cars on track (Lola F500 with a Valiant Charger body, anyone?) made the Festival of Motor Racing another success for the organisers. Next January, the featured marque will be Porsche.
