BARRY PHILLIPS
SOUTH AUCKLAND RACER
PART ONE
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the golden era of New Zealand motor racing, Manurewa and Papakura were hotbeds of activity, producing drivers such as Thomasen, Fahey, Marwood, Stone, Coppins, McLean, Emson, Bremner, Cook, Flashman, Richards – and Barry Phillips.
Barry Phillips was born in 1937 and raised in the Auckland suburb of Manurewa. While attending secondary school, he developed an interest in both the motor industry and cars in general. Living in Manurewa he, like most young men of his era, began watching Grands Prix at the nearby Ardmore circuit before taking up a mechanical apprenticeship at Lees Brothers garage and Ford dealership in Papakura.
“I served my time with Lees Brothers and that’s where several of the overseas Grand Prix cars were stored and worked on each year. That was when I got really interested and it led me to starting my first race in an Anglia, about 1964, at Pukekohe,” he recalls.
Away from racing, Barry was living next door to the recently married Paul and Kath Fahey. After leaving Lees Brothers he worked in his father’s carrier business before starting his first car yard alongside Paul and Ralph Emson. After a year, he decided to branch out on his own and set up Papakura Motors while he continued to race the Anglia in various hillclimbs and mainly street circuit race meetings, as he explains:
“I only raced the Anglia for a couple of seasons at most, mainly at Pukekohe, Matamata and New Plymouth. In fact, I blew a front windscreen at Matamata, which also saw the rear screen blow out as well.”
During this time he also formed a business partnership with his good mate Bruce McLean when they set up Papakura Wreckers (to run as a sister company to Papakura Motors). Bruce was an excellent mechanic of some note and was making his mark as a competitive saloon car driver. McLean was also assisting with the preparation of Rod Coppins’ Mustang, as many of the Manurewa-Papakura drivers tended to help each other out when necessary. Papakura Motors actually became a small hub for motor racing people, with young guys like
Jim Richards and Murray Bunn being regular visitors, to learn about and work on racing cars then enjoy the after-hours socialising that regularly took place.
LOTUS-CORTINA
After selling the Anglia, Barry negotiated the purchase of one of the first six LotusCortinas that Ford New Zealand imported into the country. The car was owned by Ford and had previously been run in the 1965 Wills Six Hour race by Kerry Grant and Frank Hamlin before being sold to a variety of dealers and private owners who never raced it. As the car’s new owner, Barry decided to enter it in the Group 2 class of racing, which was popular in the mid-1960s despite the regulatory restrictions.
“That Group 2 racing was rather restricted as we had to run the cars with all the seats and upholstery still installed and little in the way of modifications were allowed – not like the guys with their big Allcomers who could do anything!” he emphasises.
“Bruce was a fantastic mechanic and did most of the work on my car, so we eventually purchased another Cortina for him to race but with a pushrod engine. The two cars ran identical colour schemes, with mine being number 86 and Bruce’s [being] number 87.”
The two Cortinas became a notable feature around Kiwi racing circuits, with a basic white colour scheme incorporating blue side flashes and twin blue striping over the bonnet, roof and boot. Phillips campaigned his car for two or three seasons and won the Group 2 Championship in 1966 and 1967 after some great tussles with Angus Hyslop, who ran a very rapid, genuine 1275cc MiniCooper S. However, after the regulations were changed for the 1967–1968 season to Group 5 and under different capacity classes, Barry’s Lotus-Cortina was not able to contest outright honours – but he still won the 1301cc to 2000cc class, with Bruce finishing third.
That season did not start at all well, however, as the duo teamed up to drive the number 86 Lotus-Cortina in the Gold Leaf Three Hour Challenge Race, which was the curtain-raiser for the 1967 Wills Six Hour production car race at Pukekohe. Barry and Bruce drove a conservative but competitive race, only for Barry to touch the grass on braking for the loop and slide off into the large pine trees located on the outside of the corner. The car was extensively damaged and required a new bodyshell that was sourced second-hand. At least Barry was unhurt, with the exception of his pride and the loss of a guaranteed fourth place overall. He still regrets the crash as it occurred on the last lap of a race that was not good for Lotus-Cortinas – Jack Nazer’s similar car had earlier crashed heavily and caught fire at Railway Corner after a suspected mechanical failure.
MINI-COOPER S
With Group 5 becoming more expensive to run in the middle and higher capacity classes and having to compete with the new Escort Twin Cams against drivers such as Dave Simpson and Jack Nazer, Barry made the decision to change categories. He chose to race a Mini-Cooper S in the 0–1000cc class of the New Zealand Saloon Car Championship, as the overall champion was decided on who accumulated the most points regardless of what class they contested. Bruce McLean, however, decided to persevere with his pushrod Cortina and eventually won his class, but not the overall 1968–1969 Championship.
After a season of close racing and mixed results, Barry eventually finished third
overall behind the Mini-Coopers of Clyde Collins and Alan Boyle in the 0–1000cc category for the 1968–1969 season. This initial season didn’t yield the results that Phillips was really aiming for but he felt the class was extremely competitive and worth persevering with, as more top drivers were also entering.
He then purchased the ex-Roger Anderson two-time championship-winning MiniCooper S. Roger last raced the car in the 1001 to 1300cc class under Team Lexington colours before selling it to Kevin Masterton. Team Lexington was a brainchild of Rothmans New Zealand, which decided to sponsor racing teams under different cigarette brand names over the next few seasons. When the classes changed for the 1969–1970 season, Masterton, who was a quick driver in his own right, sold the Mini on to Barry, who began the season running a twin Weber set-up on the Mini’s engine as part of the new Cambridge Racing Team.
“In 1969, Jim Carney travelled to the UK and purchased the John Willment Escort Twin Cam for Jim Richards to drive. He also purchased the Arden Mini-Cooper for Mary Carney. They had a new engine built for Mary
and I bought the old fuel-injected engine that had just won the British Saloon Car Championship, driven by Alec Poole. With the new Arden fuel-injected engine set-up, changes in mechanical personnel were required so Ray Gedye came onto the team and he proved to be a superb mechanic and vital addition.”
Over the next two seasons, the Cambridge Racing Team became quite a success story around the New Zealand racing circuits; the team included drivers such as Paul Fahey (Mustang), Kenny Smith, Graham Watson, Jim Boyd (Lola T70), David Oxton (Elfin 600 Formula Ford), Jim Murdoch (Titan Formula Ford), Rod Coppins (Chevrolet Camaro), Roger Anderson (BMW 2002TI), Frank Radisich (McLaren M10A), Bryan Faloon (Rorstan Porsche) and Grady Thompson (Monaro), plus Barry in the Mini-Cooper S. The introduction of this team followed on from the popularity of the previous Team Lexington model under the Rothmans umbrella and set the scene for multi-class racing teams for a few seasons to follow.
The 1969–1970 season was a triumph for the team and for Barry Phillips himself as he was always a front-runner in his races and finished the season as 0–1000cc champion, although the overall Saloon Car Championship was jointly shared by Coppins and Red Dawson (Mustang). Oxton also held the team flag high by winning the inaugural Formula Ford Championship ahead of Murdoch.
To say the 0–1000cc class provided intense racing would be an understatement, as wellestablished drivers were running competitive machinery. This class of racing was always hotly contested but now more so than ever, as Barry enthusiastically describes:
“It was the most competitive of all the saloon car racing classes and the individual races were so hard to win from 1969 until around 1973. Over that period, I was running against Roy Harrington, Alan Boyle, Mary Carney, Jim Richards, Peter Levet, Clyde Collins, Reg Cook, Rod Collingwood, Peter Sharp and Rex Hart, to name a few. These guys were all capable of winning races and championships.”
[In the second part of our story, Barry moves from the Cambridge Racing Team to the Winfield Racing Team and then to the Brambles NZ Freighters Racing Team, continuing his winning ways until eventually retiring from full-time racing to become influential in the subsequent rejuvenation of the NZ Racing Drivers’ Club.]