MATICH'S F5000's - Fantastic Article

[garry simkin]

Ray,
Thanks for the information on the first two photos. I am being greedy and asking who can you recognize in these next two photos and then I will leave you alone ! Your input is truly appreciated. Ken.

Amaroo Park, Sept. 1970. Frank Matich taking the McLaren M 10B Repco out onto the track.






(Ken Hyndman photos )

The two people doing the job of the starter motor look like Peter Mabey on the right side of the car and Graeme 'Lugsy' Adams on the left hand side.
Garry Simkin.

[Trevor Benton]

Have been very much enjoying the Frank Matich thread & would like to learn more about the man himself both as a person & as a businessman. Is his wife still alive?

Regards, Trevor Benton, Brisbane.

[Terry S]

Have been very much enjoying the Frank Matich thread & would like to learn more about the man himself both as a person & as a businessman. Is his wife still alive?

Regards, Trevor Benton, Brisbane.

I suggest you enter "Matich" in the search box at the top of this forum to see a range of articles.

[Terry S]

I suggest you enter "Matich" in the search box at the top of this forum to see a range of articles.

Also just Google "Matich"

[Terry S]

Librules, thanks for finding the relevant issues of RCN. Saved me time.
Ah Matich! The line between fact and fiction was often very blurred at times with this guy.
I have spent considerable time over the weekend searching out the issues that have been raised on Matich. This includes from mags, books and memory.

COMEBACK RACE
For the 1966 Bathurst 500 race in October Matich says “It was also my comeback race from the burns I suffered when I crashed the Lotus at Lakeside”. (Bill Woods pg 163)
This ignores all the races he had in the Traco Olds early in 1966.

CAN AM RULES
At the start of Peter McKay’s article (RCN Sept 74) he notes “He asks if he can see a copy of this article before it goes to print. “I’ve been misquoted before”, he says. His request is met.
So what was in it must have agreed with Matich.

Was it engine capacity:
He then looked ahead to the 1969 Can Am. “When we learned that expected rule-changes on engine capacity did not eventuate it was decided we would pass up the 1969 Can Am. I was disappointed really, as I think we would have come off with it”. (RCN Oct 74).

Or stock blocks:
With about a week to go before leaving for the 1969 Can Am, Matich received a bizarre phone call. “I had been informed that the promoters in the US, SCCCA, had decided to exclude their SR4 from their competition that year. Teddy Mayer, running Bruce McLaren’s US operations, approached Jim Hall of the Chaparral team and together they appealed to the SCCA to exclude any car with anything other than American stock block engines. Their argument was that the SR4 would have been too good, detracting from the American-engined cars, and the series would lose public support” (Bill Woods pg 178)

OWNERSHIP OF SR4
Can’t find anything on this at all. Seems to have drifted into retirement.
I am inclined to believe what’s on the Tasman Revival website as I assume they got the details from Nigel Tait.
If Matich believed it was still his there would have been injunctions and caveats lodged against it. Nothing was ever mentioned along these lines.

REPEATING ARTICLES
I first read the three 1974 RCN articles by Peter McKay.
I then read a long article in June 1982 “Australian Motor Racing” also by Peter McKay
Then I got a sense of déjà vu. The later article was just a word for word condensed version of the 1974 articles only 8 years later. Perhaps they thought readers would have forgotten the earlier articles. Seems a bit sloppy to me.