Whaddayaknow?
Irena’s Torana
Spare a thought for long-suffering motor racing wives. Not the stone-faced, overpreened supermodel WAGs gold-digging F1’s pitlane, but the loyal ladies who provided tireless support to husbands plying their trade as privateers. We salute the gals who kept the home res burning while their husbands burnt the midnight oil preparing racecars then lugged them around the country. These are women who spent their annual holidays at such exotic locations as... Winton, Calder and Oran Park; girls who went without niceties at home because the other half’s race engine needed yet another rebuild.
A perfect example is Irena Kaleda, wife of 1970s Bathurst independent Ray, the racer we pro led at length in issue #97. Ray campaigned a succession of Series Production cars, most notably nishing eighth and sixth in a Charger in the Bathurst classic in consecutive years, 1972 and 1973.
Irena and Ray, whose families came to Australia in 1949 as Lithuanian refugees, met in their adopted home country and were soon an item. Their relationship blossomed concurrently with Ray’s passion for and involvement in motorsport.
With Ray also busy building up his successful mechanical workshop at Gladesville in Sydney, you can imagine how busy Irena was running around helping her husband as they raised their three boys – Danny, Garry and Alan. So Irena would have been especially deserving of receiving a brand new Torana GTR XU-1 in 1970.
But then – and this is a very big ‘but then’ – Ray decided he’d turn Irena’s orange-coloured Torana into his latest racecar!
Not that she was one to complain, mind you. Son Danny shared this often-uttered Kaleda family tale with AMC recently and asked us to put the word out about the XU-1’s whereabouts today. Ray’s memory is now failing him, so the boys – and Irena – are eager to learn if readers can ll in some gaps on the car, body number 09117B.
“This car was a present to my Mum,” Danny explained, “but Ray raced it instead! We have the full logbook with its race history, but know nothing about what happened to it after that. We’d love to nd out and, if it survives, [the logbook] would add value to the car for its owner now.
“Mum recalls being at the racetrack when the track commentator announced over the PA system that Ray Kaleda was out on the track with his wife’s new car. The announcer said something along the lines of, ‘I wonder if she knows it’s on the track; maybe he is giving it a test run for her.’”
According to the logbook, Ray rst raced the car in November 1970 at Warwick Farm, before racing it three times in 1971 at Amaroo Park and twice at the Farm, including its nal outing in September that year.
Kaleda Snr did not enter it at Bathurst in October 1971, instead teaming up with Bernie Haehnle in a Mazda 1300 that lasted 17 laps.
Paul Pressler, Ray’s co driver at Bathurst 1972, recalls that Ray was unhappy with the XU-1 as a racecar and lost interest in it after a handful of races. The Charger, Pressler says, was much more to Ray’s liking. We’re sure Irena felt the same way!
Danny supplied us pics scanned from the logbook, taken at Ray’s workshop on Victoria Road in 1970. He believes this orange machine was one of ve Toranas raced by Ray, including an L34 shown right. Yes, that is Irena pictured walking away from it in the paddock, head bowed.