Great Site

[Les Laidlaw]

Hi Steve,
A credit to you for setting up a site like this for us old boys to look through.
I worked on all of Warren Steel's cars from 76 till 81 from the Gemco Old's, Rhubarb 5, Shellsport and the odd Rally thrown in. It was a great grounding to pursue a carrer overseas and I returned each summer later on for the Formula Pacific series to work with the likes of Christen Danner, Ross Cheever, David Brabham, Paul Radisich & Kenny Smith of course.
Over the years of following my dream of working on race cars I have lost alot of my early years of photos, if anyone has any pic's from Baypark era around 79-80 I raced the ex Alan Boyle Coke HB Viva that I had fitted a rotary(it was still red and I believe ended up in Tauranga with a V8 in it) , Also the Air Pacific series I ran an ex Shellsport Mini (yellow & blue) with a crossflow head etc, I think it was ex Adrian Hill?? not sure on his first name (he brought the Rhubarb 5 from Warren Steel) Bryan Hartley ended up with the engine for his later model Mini he built for Shellsport.
I work for Ross & Jim Stone and we have the odd reminisce about the old days, its quite funny as the young guys in the team cannot believe some of the things we did back in the day.
Keep up the great work
Cheers, Les

[bob homewood]

Les,great to catch up again here,I will look around the photos of those years and see what I can find,mind I didn't keep a lot myself at the time ,which I regret now .Neville Hill was the mini guy's name
Cheers Bob

[Steve Holmes]

Les, welcome to the site, its great to have you here. As Bob has said above, it seems that those such as yourselves who were busy making history were moving too quickly to have really collected much memorabilia at the time. For the most part, you were too busy looking forward to have the time to stop and look back. But we'll be looking forward to the stories you'll be able to share.

You'll be aware your Viva (ex Boyle) has now been restored?

[Les Laidlaw]

Les,great to catch up again here,I will look around the photos of those years and see what I can find,mind I didn't keep a lot myself at the time ,which I regret now .Neville Hill was the mini guy's name
Cheers Bob

Thanks Bob,
I am planning at being back in NZ mid march 2012 so I wll give you a call and hopefully catchup.
Cheers

[Les Laidlaw]

No I didn't know it had been restored, it was a good little car, It would have been abit of a project as back then the converson was done with a gas axe and oxy set. The minilites I sold to Reg Cook as I pumped the flares/guards and ran Formuls Pacific slicks

[Steve Holmes]

Here you go Les, its owned by Mike John.