MOTORSPORT EXCLUSIVE

Tall and Short

In August 1966 Andy partnered with Jackie Stewart to win the Rothmans 12 Hour endurance race at Surfers Paradise. Andy had been 1.88m tall prior to his A40 crash, but although perhaps a tad shorter he was still tall, and the diminutive Jackie took one look at his co-driver and observed that one of them was going to be uncomfortable. Perhaps that’s why Jackie used a full harness, while Andy used a lap and diagonal safety belt.

As well, there was something dangling from the ignition key, and Jackie was most insistent that it had to be taken off. “You don’t want that swinging around if you’re going cross country at 130mph [209kph].”

With Stewart and Andy at the wheel, the 250LM won the race — although there was some dispute over the final results.

Later that season Shell flew Andy first-class to Perth for a six-hour race at the Caversham track, with high expectations of success. He was late getting to the track and missed practice, but in the race he was 14 seconds a lap quicker than the next car. A kangaroo bounded onto the circuit in front of the Ferrari while the car was travelling at 240kph, and Andy missed it by a whisker. Then it started raining and the LM was hit by another car — that damaged the right rear wheel bearing. Andy brought the car into the pits to retire. When he reported what had happened, Mckay’s chief mechanic, a very religious man, responded with, “Bum bum!”

Back in New Zealand, a typical call from David would be, “A-A-A-ANDY, I-I-I-I’VE entered the LM at the F-F-F-F-FARM, I suggest you hop upon a kite and get over here.” ‘The Farm’ being, of course, Warwick Farm, and the call would usually come on a Thursday for a race on the Sunday. Andy fondly recalls the Ferrari as a lovely, very forgiving car, except for its fierce clutch and the almost total lack of flywheel effect. Nobody, no matter how good a driver, could get the car off the line for the first time without stalling it four or five times. It could hit 117kph in first gear.

The 250LM would eventually end up as part of fashion guru Ralph Lauren’s extensive car collection. The Ferrari, along with many other cars from Lauren’s collection, went under the hammer at a Paris auction in 2011 — and fetched US$14.3 million.

Andy bought a new Elfin 400 to contest the 1967–’68 New Zealand Sports Car Championship. This lovely-looking monster was meant to have an all-alloy Chevrolet V8 engine, but it was powered by a 6.5-litre cast-iron Chevy instead. The Australian capacity limit was five litres, so he couldn’t race the car there. Andy reckons the engine weight caused the brake fluid to boil after a couple of laps, but that wasn’t enough of a handicap to stop him taking out the New Zealand championship again.