Richards set wheels in motion for NZ invasion
Saloon car supremo Jim Richards paved the transtasman way for Kiwi racers when he moved to Melbourne 41 years ago.
Twenty- five years after the last of the Richards’ four Australian Touring Car titles, fellow Aucklander Shane van Gisbergen narrowly leads the Supercars battle over Aussie Jamie Whincup with four races remaining.
Other Kiwis such as the fourthplaced Scott McLaughlin are also making their Supercars mark and there is huge excitement over Richie Stanaway after his debut at Sandown.
The next assignment for van Gisbergen i s the famous Bathurst 1000, a race Richards won seven times and his son Steven claimed on four occasions.
The 69- year- old “Gentleman Jim”, who is still racing circuits and tarmac rallies, chats to the Herald from his Melbourne home.
Fantastic . . . when I came over no one had come here to compete in touring cars. We always knew how good the Kiwi drivers and mechanics were, so it was never going to stay with just me.
Leo Leonard had competed at Bathurst before me but I was the first to settle here, and try to be a professional driver. It didn’t work out for a long time because I couldn’t source enough sponsorship. I wasn’t down to my last dollar, but it got to the stage I couldn’t afford to race. I got into a Bob Jane T- mart ( tyre) franchise with my cousin which turned things around. They ( other Kiwi drivers) looked at me I suppose and thought if he can do it, then I sure can.
Not at all. I was just another driver. When I first came to Sandown in 1975, the first guy I saw was Garry Rogers. He said ‘ welcome to Australia’ and put his hand out to shake mine. I wasn’t expecting that. Being a Kiwi with no credit rating I couldn’t get a loan. Garry went guarantor to one of his own cars with the finance company so I could buy it off him. I hardly knew him, yet he got me finance to get a car to travel around in. The mid- 1970s were a bit different to now. You would help guys out, borrow things off them. As things got more professional and more money involved, those niceties disappeared. If it means starving a guy of a part that you have these days, you starve him.
Shane showed immense talent from the time he got here. It was just a matter of learning the ropes and being guided. He is now one of the top drivers, and one of the quickest. He had good raw speed. He might have made a few mistakes in the early days but it’s a lot easier to get a guy who is unbelievably fast and has a few crashes to learn, rather than a guy who is not fast enough and doesn’t know why. I honestly don’t know why some people have natural speed. I was probably the same in my day. There were no fancy shock absorbers, no telemetry then. If you weren’t going faster, you had to try harder. Now they sit down with an engineer who basically tells them how to go faster.
They do really well for the number of people . . . Richie Stanaway really, really impressed everyone at Sandown with his speed. He had never driven a V8 Supercar before and was as quick as anyone, and a couple of seconds faster than most in the wet. He will have no problem getting a really good drive in the future.
Sure I like it now, but I liked the Group A era best, my era, when we’d start 60 cars at Bathurst, and more manufacturers were involved. Some of the sprint races with no pit stops can be a bit processional and a bit boring. To start prospering again, they need more manufacturers involved, running cars that they can sell. From next year you can develop a V6 engine but it must be the same performance as a V8, which is a difficult thing to do. They need to give other manufacturers the chance to compete, and if they are miles too fast, then restrict them.
I suppose at 69 years old, that I’m still racing is the highlight. It’s still fun, which is why I do it. I still compete in the touring car masters. I might start tapering off the circuit racing but keep doing the Targa Tasmania rallies.
I’m sure Shane will shine there, he will be one of the favourites, but it’s a long race and anything can happen.
We can’t get ahead of ourselves . . . there is a long way to go. Even little things can go wrong, as you’ve seen with Jamie Whincup’s co- driver taking the seat belt off early and bang, a lap penalty. But it would be fantastic if he could wrap the title up there. Former Supercars driver and now race commentator Greg Murphy is to return to the Australian GT grid for the Hampton Downs 101 on October 30, and the Highlands 101 on November 11. He’ll be co- driving with Tony Quinn in an Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3. Murphy last raced in a GT event at Highlands Motorsport Park in 2013. Karter Matthew Hamilton is returning California this week to defend the S1 stock moto class title he won at the annual Streets of Lancaster Grand Prix meeting this time last year. Joining him on the trip is fellow Christchurch karter Tiffany Chittenden, who had a class win at the final round of the 2016 Giltrap Group New Zealand Rotax Max Challenge earlier this month. In another attempt to gain traction in Asia, Supercars organisers are again sending five cars north. They will travel to Thailand next year to turn a few demonstration laps akin to the abortive move for the now defunct Malaysian KL City GP. Series organisers hope to have three Asian races ready to go by 2018. The Financial Times reports that Apple is in talks with the McLaren Technology Group ( including the F1 team) and is ready to hand over $ 1.9 billion for the outfit. On the other hand, McLaren has denied any such discussion. However, where there is smoke … With just five races to go in the MotoGP championship beginning at MotorLand Aragon, France, this weekend, Valentino Rossi is handily poised to challenge for yet another world title. He’s just 43 points behind Marc Marquez. The track is not one of his favourites, but he’s determined to grab as many points as possible. The Formula E championship has broken into the big time with the season finale to happen in New York City. It will be the first FIA- sanctioned open- wheel race to take place within the five boroughs in modern history. The 1.9km inner city track will run around Pier 11 and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, July 29- 30.. Jag driver Mitch Evans will wave the Kiwi flag.