• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

More from the Archives!

wombat666

wombat666

Administrator
One of the best parts of being a competitor in a 'Junior' Formula was hanging over the paddock rails and photographing the 'Top Guns'.
Mostly Tasman Cup, 1971.

View attachment 81923


View attachment 81924

View attachment 81925
Chris Amon drew the short straw at Sandown, as the STP March was out of action and he was stuck with the truly evil Lotus 70, one of Chunky's regular cock-ups!

View attachment 81926
Warwick Brown, McLaren M10B, one of the new boys, he broke both legs in his Lola T300 later in the year and wheeled the McLaren out the following season, driving with both legs in braces ........ :icon_eek:

View attachment 81927
David Oxton, a Kiwi aboard a Kiwi car, the Begg FM5.


View attachment 81928
Rich Galloway was a privateer from the US and his customer Lola T192(?) showed the difference between the Factory Lola and his 'Customer' version.

View attachment 81929
Frank Gardner, a National Treasure today and the Factory Lola driver, in between times he drove GT40s and Porsche 917s, while winning the BTCC a number of times aboard a Camaro.
Frank was always laid back and never held back if one asked for his advice, he really wanted young Australian drivers to do well.


The immaculate 'Singapore Airlines' Graeme Lawrence owned Lola T332 is not from the '71 Cup, IIRC it was about 1974, but I can't be fussed about digging through my notes again.

View attachment 81930
 
But wait! There's more!!

View attachment 81931
Kevin Bartlett drove this Mildren F5000 the first year of the series, designed (I think) by Len Terry, and soon replaced by a McLaren M10 which was swiftly replaced by a T300.
I had a one off run in this car at a Gold Star round at Hume Weir, not a great piece of equipment, it confirmed that my ambition outweighed my ability and F2 suited me very much, thank you.

View attachment 81932

View attachment 81933

View attachment 81934
Graeme Lawrence ran this ex-Amon Factory Dino for a few years, I lusted after this car then and I still do 40+ years later!

View attachment 81935
Bob 'Yogi' Muir, one of the first to bring a Lola T300 into Australia, he was one of the John Wyer Gulf team back in the UK.

View attachment 81936
Steve Thompson and the Team VDS Chevron, nice car. Sold to Ivan Tighe at the end of the series, painted Silver and had a happy career
with Ivan, last I heard he still owned the car.
 
The other bonus that came from being a 'competitor with a camera' was access to the grid, especially during testing and practice days.

View attachment 81937
Kev Bartlett and his brand new 'Chesterfield Racing' Lola T300, always well turned out.

View attachment 81938
Warwick Brown on the grid with the M10B.

View attachment 81939

Frank Matich and his Matich A51 Repco, not a very elegant car but blindingly quick with excellent handling (for an F5000).

View attachment 81940

One I missed earlier, Team VDS McLaren M10B driven by Teddy Pilette, a regular Tasman runner until F5000 started to fall out of favour.
 
And a few strays!

View attachment 81941
Johnny Leffler and one of the two Bowin P8 F000s built, this one was Chev powered and the Bob Jane owned sister car ran a Repco engine.
Nice cars with rising rate suspension along with several advanced features, but really too complex compared to a T330.

View attachment 81942
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
A McLaren M23 powered by a 'Leyland' V8, aka the 'Rover' V8 derived from the small block alloy 'Pontiac' engine.
Nasty device, looked good, ran fast and always expired in a cloud of steam, usually before half time.
John MacCormack persevered with it for a couple of years but got sick of throwing money and cylinder heads at it.


View attachment 81943
KB was always one to try something different, in this case the one and only Brabham F5000, I think it was designated BT43.
Quite a quick and handy car, it ended up broken in half after smacking the Sandown Park 'Dunlop' bridge, breaking both of KB's legs in the process.
Never resurrected IIRC, I think the parts ended up in a 'Sports Sedan'.

View attachment 81944
KB again, with his hybrid Lola T400/T332, one of the only 'T400' Lolas that seemed to have any success!

View attachment 81945
John walker with his very successful Lola T332, shortly after I shot this John Goss, Max Stewart and Walker found out the hard way that three 5 litre open wheelers, side by side, would not fit on the circuit at the top of the back straight!! Stewart and Goss got away with it, Walker had one of the biggest accidents I can recall, but was only lightly injured, unlike Lola, she was well and truly rooted!

View attachment 81946
Before he was an F1 World Champion James Hunt drove this Elfin MR8 Repco in the 'Rose City 10,000', doing a reasonable job but being relegated by the locals to a minor place.
Hunt did manage a podium (second place) at a later event, not a bad effort for a 'Pom'.
 
These are my era GP cars, when they had to be driven. Clutches and gears, separates the men from the prima donnas of today.
 
Dang - Our own "Wombat" slappin' suds with the big names! :applause::ernae:

On a side note, the Tasman series was (IMHO) one of the best racing series in its day!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top