teams, mechanics and crews

[paul lancaster]

Time to honour some of the folk, who without them, drivers wouldn't have won championships, or made a name for themselves.
Coming from timaru, nz, we have got some great local guys, who have worked for all sorts of teams.
Wayne Murdoch, fast peddler himself, but also an excellent mechanlc.
Alan Dunn, former racer, turned car builder, has worked in the U.S., Australia, and lots of other nz teams.
Jody Wilson, who has a fine reputation, worked for the Andy knight team for a long time, helping build and sort their super tourer, now helping Martin short, Brent Collins nzv8 new generation cars, he's not long been back from the U.S., to the saltlake flats, where he spannered Craig Gilbert to a new landspeed record, 387kph, which Craig told me, data showed it was wheelspinning at 300kph.
Eric Johnston from ashburton, also well known for building a fine v8,

Tell us your story's, either on the track, or off it, some of the road trips teams have made, or havnt.

[rf84]

From Hawkes Bay.
Steele Therkleson who worked for Carroll Shelby and to whom Shelby attributed a large amount of credit for their Le Mans victory. In later years he ran a very successful car restoration business in California.
Garry Simkin and Phil Harris. Phil worked for Graeme Lawrence on the M4A, F5000 etc before moving to Oz where he worked for Alec Mildren and then Pat Burke Racing on Warwick Brown's F5000. When Garry moved to Australia he also went to Pat Burke's then the pair went to the US and ended up with VDS. I'm sure Garry will fill in some more details.
Darryl and Wayne Palleson-Murray Taylor racing (UK)
Malcolm Webb-Dick Bennett's West Surrey Racing.
Alistair Caldwell-McLaren.
Alan Curry (originally from Scotland) but now residing in a retirement home in Havelock North-Borders Reivers. He was working with them on the 'D'Type Jags at Le Mans.
Bill Hanna-went with Dennis Hulme and Angus Hyslop to UK.
Craig Sant

[paul lancaster]

That's a good memory you have rf84, I think it's only right that these guys are mentioned, behind every good or great driver, there is a good mechanic, and a good team.

[Barry]

Don't forget max Rutherford in New Plymouth, Jackie Stewarts right hand man after working for Brabham.

[rf84]

Dick Bennetts himself
The Schollum brothers
Steve Horne
Roger Hill
Kevin Ingram
The Porteous brothers (Dale and Roger) and Leo Wybrott (all from Hastings). All 3 worked for both Lotus and Dale and Leo also worked for McLaren.
Alan McCall (builder of the Tui cars and designer of at least 1 Tecno F1 car)
John Nicholson (along with Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon designed, built and raced their own F1 cars).

[Oldfart]

Alex Bell (Surtees and a lot of others)
Bill Robinson
Phil Sharp
Grant Clearwater
all in Kerikeri (and there are others

[rf84]

Oldfart. Next time you are talking to Alex Bell ask him what happened to the U2 and Lotus 41 he once owned.

[paul lancaster]

I was lucky enough to meet Dick Bennett's at levels 2 yrs ago, he said he's had something like 16 f1 drivers pass through his team

[Grant Sprague]

Paul , you might want to talk to Peter about this ............... he would have some interesting stories , also Gary worked with Niki , Ronnie Peterson at march engineering & became good friends with james hunt .............. Grant

[paul lancaster]

Hi grant, good to here from you, I also remember when I was a kid, pumpkin Wilson looked after your brother Gary, when he ran the falcon in early 80s.I remember sitting in the car that was stored at jonesys place on Rathmore st.
Yes your right, peter Sprague has also been around a lot of teams too, Porsches, trs. As has ET (Evan Thomas), who has also been to the U.S..
Nigel Barclay worked for Paul morris for years, lots of good crews etc out of timaru.

[Grant Sprague]

Yep Nigel ran prancing horse, a lot of teams as did good friend McLrea , Rods son ..........mate the list goes on & on .... See you in a few months , are the Patement boys doing the corp boxes again [Ford] ?? cheers mate .......... Grant

[Grant Sprague]

Was thinking , Wal Wilmott from Timaru would be the pioneer of the lot , as was with Bruce from day one ........... lovely man lived in Hassel Street , now he could wright some books ................ we [Erine] bought a slot car set off ether him or his dad back in the early 60,s remember it well paper mache the track went through a make believe country side , hills, bridges etc etc , seemed big as a boy 7 yrs old but was probably 1& 1/5 mitres long .......................... Grant

[woody]

Paul, Is Pete Wilson the same man that was Peter Knight,s mechanic?

[Grant Sprague]

Woody , Peter Wilson [Pumkin] worked on Peter Knights Snr Boat , there were a few peters working , admin, , & racing must be a bit confusing ................. in that time & mostly from Chch & Timaru . Hope you did not mind me answering this question as Paul might not be here for a few hrs of days ............. cheers Grant

[paul lancaster]

Yip, your right there woody, Pete's nickname was pumpkin, he was a close friend of Paul Jones, who was my step-father.Pete's son Jody Wilson is also a top mechanic, and worked on Andy knights rides for years, and now looks after Craig Gilbert, and of late the 2 new generation nzv8 camrys run by the tony Richards team.
Pumpkin n jonesy were best of mates, and I remember some big sessions on Sunday nights after race day, lol.

[Kiwiboss]

From Hawkes Bay.
Steele Therkleson who worked for Carroll Shelby and to whom Shelby attributed a large amount of credit for their Le Mans victory. In later years he ran a very successful car restoration business in California.
Garry Simkin and Phil Harris. Phil worked for Graeme Lawrence on the M4A, F5000 etc before moving to Oz where he worked for Alec Mildren and then Pat Burke Racing on Warwick Brown's F5000. When Garry moved to Australia he also went to Pat Burke's then the pair went to the US and ended up with VDS. I'm sure Garry will fill in some more details.
Darryl and Wayne Palleson-Murray Taylor racing (UK)
Malcolm Webb-Dick Bennett's West Surrey Racing.
Alistair Caldwell-McLaren.
Alan Curry (originally from Scotland) but now residing in a retirement home in Havelock North-Borders Reivers. He was working with them on the 'D'Type Jags at Le Mans.
Bill Hanna-went with Dennis Hulme and Angus Hyslop to UK.
Craig Sant

My American mate out of Southern California reckons us Kiwis are the Gypsy's of the world, he says were friggen everywhere, LOL and he means that kindly!! he still doesn't believe we only have 4.5 M(he's been down a few times and now has a Kiwi wife) reckons more like 40M, LOL and he says if everyone came back at once were'd have no were to put them all!! A few years back he went up though China(via NZ and Australia) to do the Mongolian express as the train stops at his ancestors old home town somewhere in the Ukraine!! he gets put in with the only 2 other white people on the train, yeap you guess it, they're from Dunedin!!

I had the pleasure to visit Steele several times the last few years of his life in California, amazing guy and achieve greatness in the auto world especially with Shelby Automobiles!! his nickname was "Stainless Steel" and built the engines in both the McLaren/Amon and then Gurney/Foyt GT40's that won Le Mans, that's how good he was. I had the pleasure to be invite by Steele to a Shelby Reunion in Gardena and went along with him one time, it was fun!! he always had a luv for NZ but had been in the US for so long it was home and couldn't come back even though he quite often talked about it. RIP Steele.

Dale M

[928]

Dick Bennetts himself
The Schollum brothers
Steve Horne
Roger Hill
Kevin Ingram
The Porteous brothers (Dale and Roger) and Leo Wybrott (all from Hastings). All 3 worked for both Lotus and Dale and Leo also worked for McLaren.
Alan McCall (builder of the Tui cars and designer of at least 1 Tecno F1 car)
John Nicholson (along with Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon designed, built and raced their own F1 cars).

John Nicholson did not design and build his own car. the Lyncar was designed and built by Martin Slater, for JN

[John A]

Spot the Kiwis

[paul lancaster]

What a cool pic john, unfortunately, before my time.I'm sure someone will recognize them.

[Howard Wood]

J.A. you had better id them. I think I can see you plus Graeme Cook, Pete Bruin, Ian Griff and honarary NZer Norman Hossack. Given the year, Alister Caldwell must be somewhere in there too.