The Island
MICHAEL HEADS ACROSS TO ‘THE ISLAND’ FOR SOME GOOD RACING, GREAT CARS, AND THE CHANCE TO BUMP INTO SOME OLD FRIENDS
The birth of the Juniors
When New Zealanders and Australians are remembering the Anzacs, the Italians are celebrating Liberation Day to mark the end of end of Nazi occupation in 1945. Irrespective of what day of the week it fell, the Italians commemorated it with a race meeting at Monza where Le Mans–type sports cars often featured, but 60 years ago the famous autodromo witnessed something new — the world’s first Formula Junior race. There weren’t many starters, and all had 1.1-litre Fiats in front of the driver, but over the next few months of 1958, entries slowly increased. In late August the new category moved out of Italy when a race was run in Portugal, while in late September a dozen and a half Fiat-powered machines faced the starter at Monza. In early October a race was run at Montlhéry, just outside of Paris. In 1959, races of these ‘ junior-sized Grand Prix cars’ were organized in Germany, Denmark, and Austria, but the big breakthrough came on Boxing Day of that year when Brands Hatch hosted the UK’S first race dedicated to Juniors.
The category was on the verge of becoming an international phenomenon — by the end of 1960 the hugely popular F2 had been put on ice, meaning that most new drivers into F1 in the early 1960s came via Formula Junior — this included future world champions Jim Clark, John Surtees, and Denny Hulme. By then there was hardly a country in Western Europe that wasn’t hosting at least one Formula Junior race, and with most offering starting money, the potential for a gypsy-like existence emerged. The generally journeymen drivers could tow their car from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, and even behind the Iron Curtain if they were inclined, and guaranteed themselves an offering from the organizers, even if the car only travelled a few metres — and not infrequently, that was all it was capable of.
Lotus and Cooper led the way with midengined layouts in 1960, and in no time the front-engined cars were unwanted and worthless — today they command significant sums, as Formula Junior has become a phenomenon for the second time with the celebration of 60 years since Italian Count ‘Johnny’ Lurani came up with the idea. The category helped launch the international careers of many drivers (other than the three world champs), as well as mechanics and team managers like Ken Tyrrell.
The seemingly never-ending ‘60th birthday party’ rolls on, and by the time you read this, there will be races about to happen in Lithuania and Latvia — countries that don’t get mentioned in New Zealand Classic Car on a regular basis …
Formula 5000
A decade after the first Formula Junior race in Italy, a new category was launched in the United States — Formula A. For most of the 1960s ‘road racing’ in North America meant sports cars — it was fantastically popular and eventually led, in 1966, to the birth of Can-am that was largely built around the V8s produced by Detroit. Open-wheeler racing either happened on ‘speedways’ or the annual round of Formula 1’s world championship that, after starting in Florida in 1959 and then moving to California in 1960, settled at Watkins Glen in upstate New York from 1961 to 1980. Perhaps surprisingly, Formula Junior gained a foothold in both the States and Canada — but there was never a nationwide championship.
The success of Can-am gave rise to the idea of a category that combined the small-block V8s and an open-wheeler — and with that, Formula A was born. Engines were stock blocks of up to 5.0 litres, and a number of American manufacturers produced cars — most notably Dan Gurney’s Eagle concern. The only non-us interloper was Lola, which adapted its successful Can-am car to open-wheeler format and sold a heap.
The first race was The Colorado Grand Prix on May 26, 1968, and the winner, Lou Sell in an Eagle, went on to win the inaugural championship. He was supposed to be one of the four Americans invited to showcase this new category at Bay Park two days after Boxing Day, but he had been hurt in a serious accident and couldn’t travel. Those ‘A cars’ made quite an impact at the end of 1968 — regulars to the Mount Maunganui circuit were used to the lateral-thinking promoters coming
up with innovative ideas, but if the intent had been to give the authorities an example of a category to replace ‘the Tasman formula’, then it had been a raging success.
The American stock blocks were introduced to Britain in 1969, but the name was changed to Formula 5000 — pretty soon hardly anyone, even in the States, referred to Formula A any more. It became the new Tasman formula from 1970 until that much missed championship came to an end in 1975. Bruce Mclaren immersed himself in designing and building a car for the new category over the northern winter of 1968/’69 — the new car was designated M10A, and Peter Gethin wrapped up the European title. Its modified replacement, the M10B, swept all before it, with Gethin taking the 1970 championship from Howden Ganley’s semi-works model, while Graham Mcrae further modified his to dominate the 1971 Tasman Championship, and in America, the M10B was still the car to beat in the hands of Englishman David Hobbs.
Whereas Formula Junior lasted for six years, having achieved its aim of acting as a launch pad for aspiring Grand Prix drivers, Formula 5000 made it to nine on the international stage, and somewhat longer in Australia. Both the North American and European championships came to an end during 1976, by which time New Zealand had also decided to adopt Formula Atlantic. The category lived on as a revived Can-am, in which the 5000s had covered instead of open wheels. It had been good while it had lasted, but the health of the formula in historic racing does beg the question as to whether it was killed off prematurely. The big cars remain a crowd favourite on both sides of the Tasman, as was clearly obvious, once again, in the latest championship that has gone to Aucklander Andy Higgins, who has driven superbly in the black ex Danny Ongais Lola T332. No doubt that Andy would have much preferred to have gone wheel-to-wheel with his good buddy Ken Smith, however, after years of fantastic reliability, the incomparable Kenny has had more engine issues this year than any other — but he’ll be back …
Powering these mighty machines was mainly Chevrolet’s extraordinary small block — Fords were tried, as was Dodge and AMC, but the only serious V8 contender for the Chev was the Repco-holden.
Phillip Island
The March historic meeting at Phillip Island always guarantees wonderful cars, good racing, and old friends to bump into. The weather can’t always be relied upon, but this year it was magic — a weekend where Kiwis made up the majority of the Formula 5000 fields, and also bolstered the already healthy Formula Ford grid. And good weather at Phillip Island means
“When I started racing cars (my first car race was in Formula Ford in 1969 at Oulton Park), I continued with the gold helmet, adding the white design during my second full year of racing, 1971 in Atlantic”
The March historic meeting at Phillip Island always guarantees wonderful cars, good racing and old friends to bump into
getting the Bass Strait as a backdrop in all its glory. Jim Palmer had been to ‘the Island’ for bike racing, but had never before attended ‘the historics’, so was a willing companion for the two-plus hour drive from the airport.
On the Friday, just about the first person we stumbled across was Vern Schuppan, the affable South Australian who arrived in England in 1969 having never raced a car in his homeland. He had been signed by an F1 team by 1972, was Rookie of the Year at Indianapolis in 1976, and won Le Mans in a works Porsche in 1983. We admired the big straight-six Lago-talbot 126C that Vern was tending to, both Jim and I assuming he was driving it on behalf of the owner — he was, it’s him! Vern takes up the story that he’d seen this very car race as a boy. “The race was the Australian Grand Prix at Port Wakefield (South Australia) in 1955. I was 12, and it was my first time to a motor race with Mum, Dad, and my sister. Jack Brabham won in the ‘Bobtail’ Cooper, Reg Hunt was second in his new 250F Maserati, and Doug Whiteford third in the Lago. Although I don’t remember this bit, I’ve read that there was only 4.7 seconds between first and third at the finish.”
The memory of that big 4.5-litre ‘French blue’ monoposto had always stayed with Vern, and two years ago he bought it — “I hadn’t driven it until Phillip Island last year. I hadn’t planned to race the car, so thought I’d give it a couple of runs in Regularity events. I thought it would be fun, but apart from enjoying the car, Regularity was horrible!” And so the car is being raced, as it should be. I point out to Vern that there are times when there seems to be more of him out of the car than in it — “With no seat belts I lean out so that I don’t fall out of the other side! Actually, with that big armchair of a seat you can slide from side to side and drive like in the old karting days, when we used lots of body language chucking them around. I don’t think about it, it just happens — and works for lining up the apexes too!”
I ask Vern about the history of the gold-based helmet livery he has worn ever since making his name as the winner of the UK’S first Formula Atlantic championship — “I was a panel beater/ spray painter by trade working for my father. He wouldn’t hear of me going racing, but then helped me buy a kart … I painted my go-karts gold and white and my helmet in matching gold. When I started racing cars (my first car race was in Formula Ford in 1969 at Oulton Park), I continued with the gold helmet, adding the white design during my second [full] year of racing, 1971 in Atlantic.”
Not only is Vern a top bloke, his handling of the ‘Large Tablet’ was one of the highlights for Jim and me.
Formula Ford
Kiwi Formula Forders in action at Phillip Island were Peter Grant and Keith Cowan, both making return trips, while Gerald Duncan, Martin Lucas, Codie Banks, and Henry Thomas-kircher were newcomers to the daunting circuit. It’s not for the faint hearted, but all of them expressed a desire to return.
Whereas the world’s first Formula Ford race was in England in 1967, it took until October for the category to hit New Zealand — and even then it wasn’t actually called Formula Ford but rather, for that first season only, Formula C. It has been, without doubt, the greatest junior category of car racing in history, with numerous champions across all parts of the sport emerging from the cut and thrust of these little open-wheelers that almost always guarantee close racing.
Taking a leaf from the Formula Junior brigade, which started its Jubilee in 2016, a full two years before the official 60th birthday, the North Island Historic FF group has also decided to get in early, with a three-race series planned for the last weekends of January next year. Interest is already being fielded from overseas, and no doubt visitors from the northern hemisphere will take the opportunity of heading to the South Island for the Southern Festival. It is the South Islanders who have saved Formula Ford in New Zealand, and while the racing at the front is invariably between modern machinery, there are classes to cater for cars from all 50 years of Formula Ford.
This year the champion is Josh Bethune, but perhaps the best story revolves around the two drivers who finished 9th and 13th in the overall standings — namely Southlanders Joseph Oliver and Noel Atley. They were both runnerup in their respective classes — the former in Class 3 and the other in Class 2. What is remarkable, however, and possibly unique across that half century since Formula Ford became a worldwide phenomenon, is that Noel is Joseph’s grandfather. There are many cases of father racing son, but grandfather against grandson? My guess is that this is a world first.