After a second place in the Grand Prix and a retirement at Levin, Jackie Stewart began his Tasman Championship winning run with the race and lap record at Wigram in the B.R.M.
Srewart left school as a laddie of 15 to work pumps at his fathers garage, and is a former clay bird shooting champio, and he sports the Royal Stewart tartan on his helmet
Graham Hill was World Motor Racing Champion in 1962 and runner up through to 1965. He completed an impressive N.Z.G.P. 'double' this year and also established a new lap record.
Despite a fairly narrow, high-revving, torque range, the compact 'stretched' B.R.M. V8 engines proved reliable and at home on fast or slow curcuits.
Restricted to stock saloons, the Wills 6-hour once again attracted a representative field and, as usual,there was a traffic jam at pukekohes well known elbow.
At Waimate Paul Fahey (Lotus-Anglia) had kerry Grant (austin A40) hard on his heels for a time but neither of these former saloon champions could head off newcomer David Simpson for the title.
Zephyr-Corvette driver Rod Coppins finish 2nd at Renwick, having to give best to Simpson who was just about to assert his Authority at this stage.
The hybrid Ford-engined morris of Warner Collins scored 3rds in all-comer races at Teretonga and Waimate and finished 5th in the series after an in-complete season.
Third on the group 2 ladder was Ivan Segedin with the Mustang, which was a spectacular performer.
The man who wins the first corner at Waimate usually has every chance of winning the race so the all-comer field blasted off in a mad scramble for the position.
The S-Type Mini-Coopers found competition from the various Ford variations too tough in all the all-comers events, but some drivers, like R. Grace had moments og glory.
Former champion Paul Fahey did not surrender the title easily to David Simpson and the all-comer series was enlivened by lots of wheel-lifting dices between the two lotus-Anglias.
Kerry Grant with the Sebring-engined A40 found the greater swept volume of the lotus-Anglias just i little too much.
Roly Levis with the 1.5Brabham-Ford came out on top, after a race long battle with Andrew Buchanan Brabham-Climax, and took a well earned 2nd behind Palmer
Pushers help Spencer Martin fire up the Brabham as others make last minute preparations on the grid for the N.Z.G.P.
In the colourful ex-Matich Brabham, Ian (Red) Dawson gained his first national race win in the Waimate 50 at a record breaking pace.
The beautifully turned out 1.5 Lotus 32 of Australian Leo Geoghegan added colour and interest to the Grand Prix field and finished a good 5th
A third succesive win with race and lap records were Jim Palmers Renwick 50 rewards for his first Gold Star outing in the ex-Clark Lotus.
After leading in the first lap, Hollier in the Lotus 20B dropped to 5th but ended up 2nd when others fell out.
Andrew Buchanan never appeared entirely comfortable in the ex_Palmer Brabham and his third at Remwick was his best national placing of the season.
Note the great shot the facial expressions, Euan was very good at this.
Ken Sager led the Waimate 50 field from laps 2 to 12 coping with plenty of over-steer on occasions and setting a new lap record before retiring.
This was a common sight for the other sports cars, the back of the Scuderia Veloce 250Lm Ferrari
The Ferrari added a touch of colour and class to the season and was unbeatable.
John Donnelly in the H.W.M.-Corvette had a brace of Daimler SP250's on his tail at Pukekohe, and Robert Stewarts Robat Mantis in back ground.
Brent Hawes fitted his Tojeiro-Jaguar sports car with a controversial hardtop to race at Wigram as an all-comer saloon
Sports Car fans had little chance to assess the ture potential of Geoff Mardon and the husky Stanton-Corvette, the only placing in the N.Z.r.D.c. series being a 2nd at Teretonga.
Sports car battle of the season was between Geoff Mardon (Stanton-Corvette) Jim Boyd and former champion Barry Porter at Wigram.
Last edited by Rod Grimwood; 10-06-2012 at 02:49 AM.
Jim Boyd appeared to have got the measure of Martin at Teretonga, but when mardon, who was in front at the time, had a spin, the Australian slipped by on the inside and Boyd lost ground in having to take to the rough.
Unsung heroes of motor racing are the mechanics who work all hours to make cars raceworthy. Spencer Martin's Brabham underwent a major rebuild on eve of the Lady Wigram race.
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