Lost Race Cars

[Rod Grimwood]

Think Mr Williams (racing Ray) did the act of dissapearing off back straight and driving back around road to gate, in later years.

[John McKechnie]

So they leave the gate open as an emergency run off?
Dont recall this being mentioned at any drivers briefing.
Cant see them shifting tyre bundles just because the famous Ray Williams cant stop in time.
I dont recall ever seeing this emergency exit, anybody else-apart from these guys- ever see it?
Man, the Police would have a field day ticketing people on a wet day .
How would they do it-slap it on the screen as they enter the road? Or catch them on the way back?

[Rod Grimwood]

This was way before the days of the tyre barrier, in fact could have been reason why it was introduced. And it was wet.
There was a rubbish dump down in the bottom of valley, some one may be able to confirm this as well as it was a common stopping place.

Now you have sand and then tyres.

[bob homewood]

Rod ,
That was before the rubbish dump and the trees grew up from memory

This was way before the days of the tyre barrier, in fact could have been reason why it was introduced. And it was wet.
There was a rubbish dump down in the bottom of valley, some one may be able to confirm this as well as it was a common stopping place.

Now you have sand and then tyres.

[Rod Grimwood]

I was never going quick enough to get that far Bob.

[RacerT]

Too early to be a F5000, especially as its description as "a large U2" suggests it was front-engined

Racer:
Was the car built by Mike Austin, do you know? For some reason I thought it was imported from the South Island, but can't recall anything quite like that racing there either

Hi David. Yes front engined. Seemed very fast to an 18 year old! The Kombi front end bolted straight on to the chassis. I was told at the time and this is probably only a couple of years after the event, that the car had pulled 150 mph down the straight, the Kombi brakes had hauled it down to about 100 mph then faded completely. The car then leapt the creek and the fence and ended up on the road. I put Goodyear G800 tyres on it, installed a handbrake with no cables and went to the local garage. They didn't want to drive it, so I did.
I made a great flourish of pulling on the handbrake and stepping on the brakes and the car stopped in a shower of dust. They didn't seem to spot that all four wheels had locked up on the gravel. He then said "where's the sun visor?". I said "where's the windscreen?"
In the end a compromise was found with a piece of green sticky tape on the little Perspex wind deflector about two feet lower than my line of sight! Those were the days. I'll see if I can find a photo in my old albums.

[GD66]

Attachment 14498

Here is one for GD66 you might remember the story of this Mini and perhaps some of the guys in it ,not much of a photo I am sorry but this Mini was a bit " different"

Cheers Bob, from memory that mini may have had a drinking problem....ie maybe methanol ?
(I'm tapping the side of my nose furtively as I say this...)

[bob homewood]

Yes I was being a bit hard with that one as you were not around then that was Ken Kayes Mini with the Ford engine in it ,that he built in Tokoroa ,Tim was involved with it ,that's why I mentioned it ,I think in that photo there is myself ,West Marshall and Laurie Durrand ? ,the person with his back to the camera I thought might have been Tim but it could be Ken Kaye,That was the day before practice for the 1965 NZIGP meeting at Pukekohe ,I gave the guys a hand and they used my workshop at home and stayed with me that week end,unforunately although the thing flew .Ken blew the motor big time and that was the end of it ,I am not sure what happened to the car ,but I believe the engine bits were dumped

Cheers Bob, from memory that mini may have had a drinking problem....ie maybe methanol ?
(I'm tapping the side of my nose furtively as I say this...)

[John McKechnie]

Attachment 14815
Here at last is a real abandoned lost race car worthy of this title .It has been mentioned earlier on this thread.This is the Team Cambridge Monaro, driven by Rod Coppins in 1969 practice at Pukekohe, and Bay Park. Raced by Grady Thomson 1970 , and equaled outright lap record on large circuit. Also driven in practice Baypark and Pukekohe by John Riley 1972 when owned by Jim Carlisle. Last raced in 1975 by George Bunce. Found like this in Otara 15 years ago.I got it stripped body shell off trademe this year. was mentioned recently in Classic Car Driver and NZV8. Now saved and will be racing at Hampton Downs 2014.
Hard to imagine this is the car Motorman featured as a tailpiece-"Spinner said she was a flyer , wonder if he would mind me parking it in the hanger"

[Steve Holmes]

Wow, amazing photo John, and it actually deteriorated quite a bit more between when this photo was taken and when you got the car. Poor old thing has had a pretty tough time the last 25 years!

[seaqnmac27]

Ok one that was lost. From the 1973 Shell Annual. This is the one and only race of Malcolm Coffey in the Ex Jack Nazer Ford Escort at Levin 1973

[Kiwiboss]

Here at last is a real abandoned lost race car worthy of this title .It has been mentioned earlier on this thread.This is the Team Cambridge Monaro, driven by Rod Coppins in 1969 practice at Pukekohe, and Bay Park. Raced by Grady Thomson 1970 , and equaled outright lap record on large circuit. Also driven in practice Baypark and Pukekohe by John Riley 1972 when owned by Jim Carlisle. Last raced in 1975 by George Bunce. Found like this in Otara 15 years ago.I got it stripped body shell off trademe this year. was mentioned recently in Classic Car Driver. Now saved and will be racing at Hampton Downs 2014

No friggen way John, do you realize you have just over 365 days to do this!!!LOL

Dale M

[John McKechnie]

I think that by having Hardtop Smurff at HD next weekend, I kept my committment that I made last year when the Aussies were here.
This Monaro is easier , trust me- Steve H is calling in so will get him to work.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Kim lived in a place called Waitakaruru on the Hauraki Plains heading towards Thames. I think he first made his mark at Ashley Forest in a Chevette powered by a Rover V8 - remember him tipping it on its lid. He set the record in a Series 1 RX7 that may have been partially financed by Lance Green, who was his co-driver at times. The RX7 was a pretty good car, but Kim still drove the wheels off it - he was quite spectacular to watch. He also drove the Hickman / Murphy Starion, which was originally powered by a Rodeck? V8. He campaigned a Nissan Pulsar GTIR for a period in the early 90's, and was a stalwart of the Woolf Mufflers rally series. As already mentioned, he was killed in a helicopter accident with Chris Barnes. Chris rallied the Renault R5 as noted, and moved on to a Nissan Pulsar GTIR also - I heard a rumour that he was the first person to win a rally in this car in the world - winning the Whangerei Rally in 1991. Another guy who rallied around the same time was Greg Taylor - he ran Mazda RX7's, as did Mike Montgomery, and David Thexton. Greg Taylor owned a business called Central Roadmarking, and also raced at Bathurst a couple of times in a third Sierra RS500 with the DJR outfit. Taylor progressed to the RX7, possibly from a BDA Escort. Chris' daughter Leanne also made her mark a few years ago rallying cars. A great shame when Barnes and Austin were killed, and I heard a rumour way back in the day, that Taylor had throat cancer - hence the reason he spent a fortune on his rallying / racing, but could never substantiate this.

I seem to recall Austin won the 1988 Northland Rally, the following year his car caught fire and was gutted. Think he had Placemakers sponsorship in the 1990 season, he may have won the Woolf Mufflers Top Half Rally Series that year or in 89. Must have been 92 or 93 he campaigned the GTiR.
Barns was indeed the first person in the world to win a rally with the GTiR - it even scored a mention in the British magazine Autosport! He actually won 4 rallies that season, and took maximum Woolf Mufflers Top Half Rally Series points in the final round, the NZFP Tokoroa Rally, which was also the final round of the NZ Rally Championship. He came second by 4 seconds to Brian Stokes in his Sierra Cosworth.
Taylor I think had a BDA Escort prior to running the RX7 - the Mazda appeared at the beginning of the season with a really nice paintjob that moved Rob Scott to comment in his Pacenotes column that he "must have roadmarked the Assembly of God churches' carpark to afford it". Taylor went on to purchase Allport's Mazda 323, and then the Lancia that Sundstrum used to win Group N in the 1992 Rally of New Zealand. Plus he owed the ex Graeme Barker Mazda RX7 that had been fitted with a X-trac 4WD system and a Sierra Cosworth Turbo motor.
Thexton was another driver to run a Pulsar GTiR - I think it was the only one to run a X-trac gearbox. It was later sold to Geoff Argile who had a lot more sucess with it....

[Malcolm McLeod]

I could well be wrong, but i have a feeling a don smith car might have been ex ken douglas seirra which was possibly a pre-production car and possibly the first in aust. But i could be well off the mark, just recall reading it somewhere.

Ken Douglas used $80,000 of his own money to import both a road going car, and a spare bodyshell, along with a couple of engines and almost 200 engineering drawings of the modifications required to convert to a Group A racer.
To quote Modern MOTOR magazine October 1986, "Ken's name may not mean much to reader's outside Victoria yet - but believe us that will change soon".

Most of the Sierra's seemed to be Rouse kit-cars, but the Petch car was ex-Wolf (they had a LOT of scrutineering problems at their first race meeting - Franceivic said they turned up at the racetrack to do some testing and discovered a race meeting was going on! - the old European Group A regs v Oz Group A rules).
I think one or two of the later B&H Sierra's may have been Wolf as well? And of course Moffat's cars were Eggenburger cars.

Lastly, I was reading that the DJR Sierra that Taylor and Kayne Scott drove at Bathurst in 1991? had been sold (to Taylor? at the time), so what has happened to it? How many did DJR actually build altogether - must have been at least 6, as there were two sold to Mike Gravatt/Trackstar at the end of 1988, and Ray Lintott also bought one in about 1990. How many survive?

[Haga]

Lastly, I was reading that the DJR Sierra that Taylor and Kayne Scott drove at Bathurst in 1991? had been sold (to Taylor? at the time), so what has happened to it? How many did DJR actually build altogether - must have been at least 6, as there were two sold to Mike Gravatt/Trackstar at the end of 1988, and Ray Lintott also bought one in about 1990. How many survive?

All 6 survive plus a promo car. The latest internet info is that DJR1,2 in UK, DJR3 (lintot car),4,5 all in QLD, 6 just sold to VIC and promo car in Tassie. There is a RS500 thread with lot of info in it on here..cheers

[928]

this si in reply to post No 415

Your comment about the Graeme Barker RX7 having a sierra cosworth turbo engine contrasts with Jamies version where it has a Cosworth GAA v6. I wonder which is correct? or was an engine change done?

[Steve Holmes]

I recall seeing it on tv doing the Ashley Forest Sprint, and the tv commentator said it was fitted with the V6 from the old Paul Fahey Capri. But there were at least 3 of those motors in NZ by that time.

[Steve Holmes]

Ken Douglas used $80,000 of his own money to import both a road going car, and a spare bodyshell, along with a couple of engines and almost 200 engineering drawings of the modifications required to convert to a Group A racer.
To quote Modern MOTOR magazine October 1986, "Ken's name may not mean much to reader's outside Victoria yet - but believe us that will change soon".

Most of the Sierra's seemed to be Rouse kit-cars, but the Petch car was ex-Wolf (they had a LOT of scrutineering problems at their first race meeting - Franceivic said they turned up at the racetrack to do some testing and discovered a race meeting was going on! - the old European Group A regs v Oz Group A rules).
I think one or two of the later B&H Sierra's may have been Wolf as well? And of course Moffat's cars were Eggenburger cars.

Lastly, I was reading that the DJR Sierra that Taylor and Kayne Scott drove at Bathurst in 1991? had been sold (to Taylor? at the time), so what has happened to it? How many did DJR actually build altogether - must have been at least 6, as there were two sold to Mike Gravatt/Trackstar at the end of 1988, and Ray Lintott also bought one in about 1990. How many survive?

Wow, I didn't know that! Did Douglas ever race it, or is this the car that went to Don Smith, as Roger suggested above? If so, this would be the car whose shell became the Ceveri Chevy powered sports sedan.

[JIMPY]

Attachment 8938

Photo taken 26/1/1963 at Teretonga New Zealand, either race No 3 or 8. This photo hangs in a quiet corner and I thought to be the only one.. The car was taken to Uk during year 2000 and appeared in CLASSIC & SPORTS CAR magazine January 2001 page 230
under the heading TO SELL YOUR CAR---HISTORIC-RACING-HILLCLIMB.....LLOYD SPECIAL 1955, SIMILAR COOPER, beautifully built. New Zealand Record Holder. also includes a photo and a Price with Trailer UK $ 8.950 = NZ$ a lot JIMPY