Dale Mathers:

Last but not least, my old mate Dale Mathers. The main reason for my deciding to build this car, was because now I finally have somewhere suitable in New Zealand to race it. Dale, Tony Roberts and myself started the Historic Muscle Cars class back in 2010, with the focus being on building and racing period correct big-bore sedans.

Although it was the three of us who started this thing, its Dale who has taken on most of the workload, and really carried it on his back. We got a bit of grief in the first few years, because people thought it would never work, and most of that was aimed at Dale. But he dug his toes in and hung on, and today, combined with the small-bore Historic Saloon Cars class we’ve also taken on, and which is headed by Bruce Dyer, we’re getting really great support.

Actually having somewhere suitable to race a car is an incredible motivating factor. I used to be involved with Central Muscle Cars, but never really had the urge to race my own car in that group. They’re much faster, and much more competitive, with the cars themselves much more heavily modified and modernised for my liking.

Although my car will actually be a lot more period correct than many of the cars in HMC, and be a lot slower than most, the class provides me the perfect place to race. Not only will it look right in amongst the HMC/HSC cars, those taking part in HMC/HSC are genuine enthusiasts who race for fun, not all-out racers, and have respect the each others machinery. For example, everyone gets a trophy for finishing second, and they get their trophy when the weekend is only half finished! Added to that, its also just a really fun place to go racing, with a really great bunch of people.

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