Article: Bay Park Big Bangers: Christmas 1973

[Steve Holmes]

Race 2: In between races, Moffats team set to work, and had the Mustang running crisp and clean by the time the cars rumbled out on track for Heat 2. Grid positions were based on lap times from the previous heat, and off the line Baker stormed away to lead, while Moffat quickly burst through to second, and began applying the blow-torch to the rear of the pink Mustang. For the opening two circuits, the two Mustangs were locked together, Baker in front, Moffat right behind, and on lap three, as they hurtled towards the hairpin, Moffat chucked the Brut 33 machine up the inside under brakes. But his speed was too great. Baker tucked back, and Moffat skated straight off the track, pirouetting backwards through the wooden catch fence, clouting it hard, and coming to a sudden stop. As the smoke and dust settled, Moffat climbed from his car. The left rear wheel was hanging in mid-air over the side of the bank. The Mustang was beached.

Meanwhile, back on track there was still a race going on. With Moffat out, Fahey now set off after Baker. Again he closed up on the Mustang, but in the areas the Capri was faster, there was no way through. For lap after lap Fahey would be tucked right up behind the PDL car under brakes and through the corners, only for Baker to power away down the straights. And as these two battled, they broke the saloon car lap record, both recording identical 59.7 laps. After 8 laps, Baker made it two from two. Dawson finished third, ahead of Richards, while Haig managed to get by Coppins towards the end.



Race 3: The damage to Moffat’s Mustang was superficial. Once dragged out of its resting place in Race 2, it was quickly up and running again. Expectations for a classic final match-up rose as the cars took their grid positions for Race 3. Baker again blasted away from pole to lead the field through turn one, and down the back chute he was still ahead. The Moffat challenge was over as quickly as it began, with the hard charging Canadian-Australian over-revving the little 302 on the opening lap, and pulling off with a suspected blown motor.

The Fahey challenge also quickly disappeared, as bashing through the gears, Fahey accidentally knocked the fuel switch off, and the Capri died. This left Dawson chasing the flying Baker up front, with Richards back in third. But the PDL Mustang was running crisp and clean, and Baker was full of confidence, and all Dawson could do was try hard, and hope to push his rival into a mistake.

Back behind Richards was Haig, who had the spectacular Riley right behind him. The blue Camaro was running just a little quicker, and just as Moffat had done in Race 2, Riley attempted a big dive on Haig heading into the hairpin. But instead of firing up the inside, Riley instead clunked straight into the rear of the Mustang, tapping it into a half-spin, while Riley himself tore off for a wild ride backwards through the wooden catch-fencing. The Camaro was travelling at such speed, it climbed right up off the ground as it hit, eventually coming down to land, swinging around to face the opposite direction to the track, on the grass outside the fence. Unfazed, Riley, the former speedway warrior, fired the Camaro right back up, selected 1^st gear, and set about getting back into the action. But almost immediately the Camaro spluttered and died. The impact had torn the fuel tank clean out of the car. Riley was going nowhere.



Baker reeled off the final laps, fought off the Dawson challenge, and took his and PDL’s third race victory from three starts. It had been a good day. Richards finished up third, behind Dawson. As the 1973/74 NZ Saloon Car Championship moved on to other tracks and other rounds, the Sidchrome Mustang became quicker and quicker, and by the end of the season, was a match for anything. And in its first full racing season, took Richards to the NZ Saloon Car Championship.

But on this day, Baker and the PDL Mustang were invincible.

So while Hanna and his team at Bay Park normally relied on the international teams to provide the fireworks, on this occasion, it was the local contingent who stepped up.