Have just heard that Roly Levis has passed away. Very very sad news, and our thoughts and prayers will be with Roly's family.
I was extremely lucky to be in Roly's company on a number of occassions as Roly owned and competed in the Brabham BT6, which I am fortunate to own, in the years September 1964, 1965, till around September 1966. In this time with the car, Roly competed in 14 Tasman races, competing against the world's best, and of course Australia's best, both in NZ and Australia. Roly was very often the first 1.5 litre car home beating the likes of Leo Geoghegan and Greg Cusack on many occassions on their home turf in similar capacity cars. In this BT6 Roly won the NZ 1.5 litre National Championship in both 1965 and 1966, coming 4th then 3rd respectively in the NZ Gold Star.
Later in Roly's career he had a Brabham BT18 then a BT23 which carried him to NZ's ultimate prize - the NZ Gold Star in 1967 with the BT18 and 1967 with the BT23.
I first met Roly at the inaugural Tasman Revival in 2006, with his daughter Vivien. Roly was very happy to see his old Brabham in such good condition and running well. Roly had a wonderful passion for motorsport, and was very kind taking such an interest in the cars that were the front line racers so many years ago, and to us, the drivers who pale into insignificance when compared to the feats that Roly and his contemporaries acomplished in those wonderful years so long ago now.
Roly was 88 years.
I will always remember at Hampton Downs in 2010 when Roly was to do some parade laps in the BT6, and his ankle denied him the ability to push the clutch in enough to disengage the clutch - he simply said - you fix the clutch and I'll fix the ankle and we'll do it next time. Well Roly did fix the ankle with an operation that was successful, sadly there was no next time.
We will all miss you Roly.