The theme of this first festival was Kiwi icon Bruce McLaren, who died 40 years ago this year while testing one of his cars in the United Kingdom. Many McLaren cars were on show, some created and raced during Bruce’s lifetime and some which came later.
On track, evergreen New Zealand veteran Ken Smith (Lola T430) made it four wins from four starts. Though 2007-08 MSC F5000 series winner Chris Hyde (McRae GM1) pipped him for pole position in qualifying, defending series champion Smith proved to be the man to beat in all four races.
With a huge field of 40 beautifully restored and race-prepared V8-engined, 70s-era cars contesting the third round of their MSC-backed 2009-10 series, the Formula 5000s provided one of the highlights of the Hampton Downs meeting with a 10,000-strong crowd on Sunday alone enjoying wheel-to-wheel action in all four races.
For many of the huge crowds attending, it was their first motor racing event and for some, the first time they had been to a race meeting for many years.
Festival chairman Jim Barclay said everyone knew the McLaren Formula One team of today but he wanted to remind a new generation, as well as those older enthusiasts, that the DNA of that team started here in New Zealand with an ingenious, creative and gifted racing driver and engineer called Bruce McLaren.
“We were expecting quite a bit of interest but we were stunned by the response to the event,’ Mr Barclay said. “Thousands turned up, and it was great to see so many younger people as well. They were obviously keen to see the cars and take a look. Someone said to me that it was the noisiest, fastest and coolest museum they had ever seen.”
The New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing continues at Pukekohe Park Raceway this weekend and for many visitors the Pukekohe venue is particularly appropriate as it was there that McLaren won the 1964 International Grand Prix driving a ‘works’ Cooper Climax.
The programme will be the same as last weekend with a practice day on Friday and racing commencing 9am, Saturday and Sunday.
As well as race action, there will be all sorts of fun, family entertainment and special displays including a nostalgic photographic display from the past. Visitors are once again encouraged to wear suitable period dress to mark the occasion.
Remarkable race career
THE extraordinary Bruce McLaren, revered by motor-racing fans in New Zealand and honoured internationally for his achievements on the track, was born in 1937 in Auckland, New Zealand.
As a young schoolboy he suffered Perthes disease in one hip joint and spent two subsequent years strapped to a metal frame at the Wilson Home for Crippled Children in Takapuna.
The affliction only fired his determination to overcome this adversity and hence set a tone of conquering huge challenges.
Bruce was selected as New Zealand’s first ‘Driver to Europe’ in 1958. Under the watchful eye of family friend, and later three time World Champion Formula One driver Sir Jack Brabham, he initially joined the ‘works’ Cooper Formula Two Team in 1958 before his results earned him a promotion to the Cooper works F1 racing team for 1959 and beyond.
At the age of 22, he won the 1959 United States F1 GP to become the youngest ever F1GP winner – a record held in his name for more than 40 years. Then in 1960 he won the Argentine F1GP and was second overall in the 1960 world F1 Championship.
Two years later he won the prestigious Monaco F1GP driving a Cooper. Bruce finished third in the championship but his mind was already on Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, a team he set up in 1963 and which remains to this day as the basis of the highly successful Vodafone Team McLaren F1 Team.
Bruce continued to race and win in Coopers, including the New Zealand GP in 1964 and the Tasman Championship.
He left the Cooper team at the end of 1965, and announced his own McLaren GP racing team. In 1968 he took his fourth career win - racing his own McLaren F1 car - at Belgium’s Spa circuit in 1968, achieving the team’s first Grand Prix win.
Team mate and fellow New Zealander Denny Hulme, the 1967 F1 Champion, won twice in the McLaren-Ford in 1968 then in 1969 Bruce’s McLaren team finished third in the F1 standings.
It was in powerful sports car racing where Bruce’s design flair and ingenuity were graphically demonstrated.
Canadian–American (Can-Am) Challenge Cup racing was becoming popular with fans in Canada and the USA and in the six-race 1966 series the new McLaren Can-Am cars finished second three times, and third three times for an overall third place in the series.
In the following five years (1967-1971) the McLaren team won five consecutive Can-Am championships. In 1969 McLaren cars proved unbeatable, winning 11 of 11 races. In two races, they finished 1-2-3. (McLaren, Hulme and Mark Donohue).
