Video Of The Day: 1971 NZIGP Saloon Car Race

[Steve Holmes]

Faminz (Brett) uploaded and posted this amazing video on the Cambridge Monaro thread, and I was so blown away by it I had to give it its own thread.

This is footage of the Unlimited Engine Capacity Saloon Car Feature at the 1971 NZIGP at Pukekohe, held January 9, 1971. This was the event where the organizers coughed up big bucks to ship Norm Beechey and his 1970 ATCC winning Monaro across to race the local drivers. This wasn't a championship race, that was held earlier in the day. This was essentially just an allcomer race, and was the only race Beechey contested.

This race also had one of the very first appearances of Paul Fahey's newly built 1970 Cambridge Mustang. Because he was running his Escort in the championship races, the team didn't get a chance to properly set the Mustang up for the Puke bumps, which caught Fahey out in qualifying. Despite his being the fastest of the New Zealand sedans, his poor qualifying time was enforced by the officials, and the crowd was robbed of the chance to see him take it to Beechey, as he had to work through the field before he could give chase. He moved through to second pretty quickly, but by that time Beechey was gone.

Other cars of interest are Clyde Collins up from Christchurch in the PDL Falcon, as well as American driver Joe Chamberlain, plus Rod Coppins in their Camaros, Jim Palmer in the Brian Foley Porsche, plus the fast Escorts of Jack Nazer, Jim Richards, Don Halliday, and everyone else.

Sadly no sound, but still awesome to watch:

[rf84]

Halcyon days!!!!!!
A few random thoughts:-
How the marshalls actually marshalled-standing on the very edge of the track and dodging wayward cars to wave the yellows and pick debris up. Today the Safety Car would be bought out to really b---er up the race.
The crowds. A group of us drove to Puke in '71 ( 6 hours from Hastings) slept 4 in a car outside the gate, watched the racing, probably got drunk and sunburnt, then drove 6 hours home again. From the crowds (or lack of them) these days it seems most would not even bother to drive from Auckland.
What is wrong with our sport?

[Steve Holmes]

I had incorrectly identified the orange Camaro as being driven by Dennis Marwood. In fact, its actually the American driver Joe Chamberlain, in the second of two events he contested with his SCCA A/Sedan Camaro. The car stayed in NZ after this, and was driven by Marwood throughout the rest of the season, while Chamberlain flew home and built another '69 Camaro.