14 replies to this topic

[Milan Fistonic]

That's right. Ken Smith (63 I believe) has won the 2004 New Zealand Grand Prix held at Teretonga today.

Quite what satisfaction he would get from winning a Formula Ford race I don't know.

Have there been any older Grand Prix winners?

[Rob29]

May be the oldest winner of a FF race let alone a GP! Only in historic racing have I heard of older people.Stirling Moss is still at it at 74.
Sad that the NZ GP has been reduced to this level. Only Denmark has also run its GP for FF to my knowledge. I remember when we could read about F1 drivers racing for 8 weekends down under,now when it would be possible to watch it live there is nothing worth seeing until March.

[Coogar]

Tommy Reid won at least one FF1600 race in Northern Ireland during 2002 at the age of 69. He had to be content with podium places last year but hopes to be back.......

[David McKinney]

Kenny'll beat that, the way he's going
He first raced in the NZ Grand Prix in 1965, though he'd appeared in supporting events at the GP meeting since 1962

[Geoff E]

From Shelsley Walsh last May -

"In the damp conditions Tony Marsh in his Gould used 71 years of experience to take the best time of the day – some 36 years after he last set BTD at the hill which was in his Championship year with the 4WD Marsh special."

I suspect he hasn't been driving quite that long!

[humphries]

The oldest race winner I know of was Dan Carmichael of the USA who won the National Championship Formula Atlantic race at Mid-Ohio in 1995 at the age of 76. He had been a National Championship race winner back in 1969 and 1970 in "C" sports cars.

John

[Coogar]

Yes, I think Dan Carmichael holds the official record. I seem to recall hearing that he also flies - or maybe flew now - some very rapid aeroplanes too........

[Mac Lark]

A former 2-time winner of the NZGP recently expressed his sadness to me that the once great title had been reduced to a Formula Ford race.

And we're talking 1600cc Kent FFs, NOT even 1800cc Zetecs.

I told him that I didn't think it was just sad, it's an absolute bloody insult on the title.

The race was run at Teretonga - the southernmost circuit in the world in a part of NZ creatively known as 'Southland'.

Call it the Southland Grand Prix, the Teretonga Grand Prix, the Speights Brewery Southern Man Grand Prix BUT NOT the NZ Grand Prix.

But, sadly, this is how low the administration of motorsport has fallen to here.

If I lived next door to the track, I wouldn't go on principle.

And this is to take nothing away from Kenny - one of the real characters of NZ motor racing...

[Milan Fistonic]

I've just realised that Kenny's three wins have been 14 years apart - 1976, 1990 and 2004.

Now that's got to be an unique achievement.

[Bernd]

That's an amazing achievement. This man used to race with Jim Clark, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Amon, Hill et all and he is still winning races, in open wheelers no less!

Anyone know what he did with his old Lotus?

[Exar Kun]

Originally posted by Milan Fistonic
I've just realised that Kenny's three wins have been 14 years apart - 1976, 1990 and 2004.

Now that's got to be an unique achievement.

Unfortunately that means he's going to have to wait until he is 77 for his next one.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Bernd
Anyone know what he did with his old Lotus?

Which one?
He raced a 22, then a 41, and then a 59
And several others passed through his hands in later years

[Bernd]

Specifically the 22 & 41

[David McKinney]

Smith sold the 22 to Frank Radisich who fitted it with a twin-cam engine stretched to 1825cc and later 1960cc. It was rebuilt later to become the FVA-powered HCM before being converted to FF spec

The 41 was also converted for FF, by its first owner after Smith

[Ray Bell]

Ken is a great enthusiast and a gritty driver... he deserves the win, even if the category doesn't deserve the title...

Odd thing is, Aussie F3s went to NZ this month (I think they did it this month...) and I think there are some NZ runners in the.

But at Teretonga... how low can they go? Quite unlike the old days we'd like to remember...

Somebody put this on the Amon thread a while back about Teretonga and the slipping standards et al...

Originally posted on the Amon thread
The wind still laps at the grass at Teretonga, though, whispering through the bushes as it skirls about the droplets of rain that lie in residue ... another day has gone by in the life of the world's southernmost circuit... where never again will World Champions drive, nor will the thrills of the Tasman Cup bring the jacketed enthusiasts out for a late-January afternoon...

Those were times we all long to recall, when the weather was fine, the girls young, the cars rare and blindingly fast as their masters mustered most of their mysticism, keen to get a break in the points before sailing to Australia and circuits that will be hotter and harder to win on.

Yes, the Tasman was usually won in New Zealand. Australian rounds rarely turned out a reversal in the points.

Donn Anderson is no longer the guru bringing the news of the latest race to the readers of the Kiwi motor racing magazine (what was its name?), and brother Rodger no longer races a Mini, nor accompanies him in his tour of the Australian rounds.

No more are the multitudes of Hillmans and Minis and Zephyrs pressed into service to take the serious enthusiasts from race to race, a fabulous serving of skills and machinery that it's almost worth waiting a year to see...

Strangely, one of the first of the visitors to give up the annual trek was Bruce McLaren, too tied up with F1 and Can-Am development. Denny Hulme came no more, either, but there came the days when Amon was able to convince Ferrari to send cars to his homeland.

Made Jim Clark's life hell for a few weeks...

Cruelled it for Rindt the following year...

And when it was done, the winds whispered among the grasses at Teretonga... across the runways at Wigram.... through the horse-rails at Pukekohe and round the old grandstand at Levin.
Darkness brought peace and the time to think of those races now gone, the heroes victorious or vanquished. The dreams shattered, the odd emergence of someone new and exciting... like Piers Courage and his McLaren FVA in 1968.

The names those winds now hide, drivers now gone... McLaren, Mayer, Rodriguez, Clark, Hulme, Hill, Rindt, Courage, Scott... others that simply faded away... Attwood, Irwin, Maggs, Palmer, Matich, Bartlett, Geoghegan, Cusack, Allen, Levis... not many still going... Brabham, Gardner... those who never made the grade... Dawson, Gibson and the unlucky Bolton, who got sick taking deep breaths of exhaust on the starting grid at the first round...

The winds of Teretonga trouble them not, only skirl about the raindrops that have fallen today, chilling them a little as the Southern Ocean refuses to warm early this year.

Just two stars of this racing now live... Amon and Brabham, but perhaps you could say Matich starred, too, for he did lead a couple of races.

Not many is it? Not much resistance for the winds of time.

By the way, is that the first time the NZGP (hesitate to use the initials 'NZIGP' these days...) has been run at Teretonga?