With Howden Ganley
We are thrilled to welcome Howden Ganley to our team of contributors. As a former F5000, Formula One and sports car driver, as well as half of the team which built the Tiga range of race cars, Howden is still very actively involved in the North American a
Imust start this new column by saying how flattered I am to have been asked by our editor to contribute alongside all the other writers, and in particular our wonderful old mate Eoin Young. I am reminded that when I was a teenage reporter for the Waikato Times, I contributed to other publications under the byline of James H Ganley, and I had a South Island rival who wrote under Eoin S Young. We eventually met, at Ardmore, in January of 1961 and started a friendship which lasts to this day.
The bright world of Concours and some retired racers
Editor Tony seems to have given me free rein to ramble as I choose, and as some people might say, rambling seems to be one of my specialist subjects.
The year started well with what now seems to be a collection of Concours events. I guess it is the season for Concours d’ Elegance, so I was delighted to be invited to the annual event in Scottsdale Arizona.
It began with a Seminar celebrating the 50th anniversary of Cobra beating Ferrari at Le Mans, with one of the Shelby Cobra Coupes. There were two cars, and the Chris Amon/Jochen Neerpasch car was looking as though it would take the win, but it was disqualified for changing an alternator and the Dan Gurney/Bob Bondurant car swept on to victory.
Of the original team members, Jack Hoare (engine builder) and Jean Stuki (race mechanic) were members of the panel, along with Pete Brock, the body designer, John Morton who was one of the Shelby team drivers and Bob Bondurant. Dan Gurney joined in by video.
An invitation to dinner from Francois Castaing and his delightful wife was especially enjoyable. Francois has a very significant place in motor racing, having gone to work for Amedee Gordini as a first job after leaving school, and then after Gordini was taken over by Renault, he rose to the position of Renault Sport Technical director. As such he could be regarded as the father of the Renault V6 Turbo engine which was to turn Formula One on its head.
Later in his stellar career, Francois became Vice President for Vehicle
Engineering at Chrysler, a position which brought about his involvement with the unraced Chrysler V10 Formula One engine. A true ‘what might have been’ story.
I asked him if he was still in touch with some of his former colleagues in the F1 engine business. “Yes” he said, and then gave me a short technical dissertation on the problems which were likely to reveal themselves at the Bahrain F1 testing.
We now know his predictions were absolutely right, albeit many were solved (just) by the time the teams got to Melbourne. As a hobby Francois races a Chevron B23, and as I drove one for the factory in 1972, we had an interesting discussion on the merits of this quite brilliant little sports car.
Another guest was Lyn St James, the lady who was 1992 Indy Rookie of the Year, and who in 1994 out qualified both Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell, to get herself on the second row. “So,” I asked her “were you able to flat-foot it all the way around?”
“Yes.” Wow – I am envious. I would love to have had the chance to race at Indy.
The next day some absolutely wonderful, and rarely seen, cars of all categories adorned the lawns of the Biltmore, including the Le Mans Cobra.
I was not able to stay for all the rest of the week’s festivities and auctions (not to mention the dinners!) as I was on my way to New Zealand for the Ferrari Festival at Hampton Downs.
Home for Hampton Downs
Two weekends featuring so many great cars and it is a testament to organiser Jim Barclay, with his team of Richard Gee, Tony Roberts, and Chris Watson that they gathered together over 140 Ferraris on track. Who knew there were so many Ferraris in New Zealand?
With Chris Amon, Graeme Lawrence, and Andy Buchanan (looking remarkably fit) all in attendance as genuine Ferrari drivers, I felt a bit of an imposter at the autograph sessions. John Julian, the author of that excellent book ‘1967 ‘on Chris Amon, was also present. It is a fascinating story, so well told by John, and is a must for any library.
Howden’s Ruapuna debut and a famous picnic
Together with Michael and Sandy Clark I then headed for Christchurch, mostly with the mission to visit Eoin, as well as watching the racing at Ruapuna. For some reason I had never previously seen Ruapuna – when I raced in the South Island it was at Wigram. I am sorry to see that apart from the hangers, nothing now remains of that famous circuit, with its special place in motor racing history.
The day prior we had been entertained to lunch by Brent Esler of Gulf, at that wonderful place near the airport, Hinton’s Winery and John Stewart’s car collection. What a great eclectic collection of cars and ephemera.
Entertaining racing over the weekend and it was good to see Michael Lyons winning the F5000 races in his father Frank’s beautiful Eagle. I am sure Dan Gurney was more than delighted when he got the news.
On the Saturday of race weekend, Michael Clark and I decided that we would entertain Eoin to lunch, by re-enacting the ‘famous ‘picnic which he and Denny Hulme enjoyed back in 1961 (well, Eoin enjoyed it, but there is less certainty about how much Denny enjoyed it) when they were travelling through France during one of those long hauls from race to race.
Eoin has written his account of the ‘real time’ event so we set out to duplicate it as near as possible. Stop by the supermarket; collect a French loaf, tomatoes, ham and cheese, plus the essential bottle of red wine. In 1961 the Hulme Equipe had lacked a corkscrew but it was eventually discovered by Eoin to be ‘un tire bouchon’ with which information I imagine the Bear was absolutely thrilled! Fortunately the screw top wine bottle made things much easier at the re-enactment.
When Michael and I asked Eoin to attend our re-enactment picnic (Picknik) he had handed me a copy of his excellent book about Denny, Memories of the Bear in which he had told the original story. I have marvelled at how Eoin was able to persuade Denny to stop not just once, but twice.
Had Eoin been travelling with me to one of the Formula Three races in the late ’60s, we would not have been stopping for any picnics. “If you want a picnic you can have it when we get to our destination”.
In those days there were very few Autoroutes or Motorways, apart from the great Autobahn system in Germany, so one needed to press on. A typical trip would have been firstly to a race at Rheims, then on to Roskilde in Denmark, from there to Keimola in Finland, back to Hockenheim in Germany, and finally home to England. The journeys between races, as far as I was concerned, had to be as near non-stop as possible and restricted to stops for fuel, stamping of carnets at the borders, and eating while driving. No wine, so no need for corkscrews, aka tire bouchons.
Denny must have been in ‘Indulgent Bear’ or ‘Tolerant Bear’ mode on picnic day!
Back on the Concours circuit
Back in Auckland, I was invited by Club Lotus to attend the Ellerslie Concours. They had borrowed my Lotus Eleven, through Neil Tolich, and had a very impressive display. Having been aware of the event, but never actually made it there, I found it most enjoyable.
Would I go again? Certainly. Just as I was about to leave, in late afternoon, I was asked if I would attend the prize giving ceremony and I was delighted to receive, on their behalf, the second place club Trophy which was awarded to Club Lotus. Well done the Lotus guys!
If I thought I was done with Concours for a while I was mistaken. I next received an invitation to one of the premier events in the US, the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, and for this the 19th running, the honoree was Jochen Mass.
It is traditionally one of those shows where everybody who is anybody arrives and it was a constant get together with so many old friends and acquaintances. People such as Brian Redman, Derek Bell, Lyn St. James, Michael Keyser, Hurley Haywood, Pete Brock, Rob Dyson, Murray Smith, Gill Campbell, Pete Biro, Phil Reilly, Judy Stropus, and Skip Barber as well as all of those on the Seminar panels. The list seems endless. Then there are the lunches and dinners, with subsequent damage to one’s waistline.
Saturday night a few of us were invited to dinner by Charlie Kemp, who many people will remember from his CanAm days and particularly his spectacular backflip in the Porsche 917/10 at Road Atlanta. Charlie had just come from RM auction where his Shelby 350GT Mustang, in which he won a straight 17 races, had sold for a little under $1 million. “Was that how much you wanted?” I asked him. “No,” he responded “I had hoped for a bit more, but I am happy with the result”. To show us how happy he was, Charlie very kindly picked up the dinner tab!
There were two absolutely brilliant seminars – the first (on Friday), compered by Tim Considine, was on the Offenhauser engine with the title “Great Offy Drivers”. The panel comprised Sonny Meyer, David Hobbs, Al Unser, Snr, Bobby Unser, Parnelli Jones, and Sam Posey – all of whom had raced with Offy engines. Great stories and much hilarity as one might expect with those blokes all telling their stories.
On Saturday, the Seminar, splendidly compered by Justin Bell, had as its theme “Merchants of Speed”, mainly about IMSA racing in the 80s and 90s, and the panel comprised Alwin Springer (of Porsche USA), David Piper, Bobby Rahal, Ray Evernham, John Mecom, and Bob Tullius. Another great event.
It was nice to see John Mecom there with his lovely lady Linda, and we reminisced about his connection to the early days of McLaren. It was John who sold Bruce the ex-Penske Zerex Special, together with the Oldsmobile engines. Wal Willmott and Tyler Alexander built a new chassis to take the V8 engine, in place of the original Climax, and in fact had just completed the conversion when I joined the team. Bruce diplomatically renamed the car ‘Cooper Oldsmobile’, and it provided the inspiration for the first true McLaren, the M1, which we built later in 1964. The start of it all. Apart from being, indirectly, a catalyst for the McLaren sports car, John owned the Red Ball Special (Lola) in which Graham Hill won the Indy 500.
On Sunday the cars (approximately 350 of them) are all displayed on the 10th and 18th fairways of The Golf Club of Amelia Island. Wonderful grass – I would love to play golf on it!
I was most honoured when Bill Warner, the founder and chairman of the event, asked me to be a judge for the McLaren category. Little could I have imagined when we were slogging away building those early McLaren cars that 50 years later I would be strolling down a fairway, in jacket and tie, judging and grading them. Times change!
My fellow judges were Ray Evernham, Steve Roby, David Hobbs, and Al Unser. We unanimously awarded top prize to the ex-Peter Revson M20, to the delight of Jennifer Revson (Peter’s sister) and car owner Don Devine. It turned out that our fellow judge, David Hobbs, had also raced that car the following year (1973), with sponsorship from Carling Black Label.
I must again make mention of that wonderful man Bill Warner. Among his many impressive feats is his introduction of the judges to the huge audience. He brings in some very famous men from all parts of the motor industry and the motor racing world (you might ask how I got there?) and with so many cars, the judges number 100. Without notes, or drawing breath, Bill introduces each judge in turn by name and gives a brief history of each. An astounding feat.
One of Bill’s other ‘feats’ is that he restored the Brabham BT8 which was such an important car in the early career of Denny Hulme.
If you are ever in Florida during March, this event is a must for any enthusiast. For 2015 the Honoree is Sir Stirling Moss, together with Lady Susie.
So now – back to finishing my book, and looking forward to some more adventures as the season progresses.