During last February's Hampton Downs Festival there was a dinner to celebrate 40 years of Formula Ford in New Zealand, attended by an amazing number of early competitors and champions from the '70's onwards.
Formula Ford started in Brands Hatch, England in July 1967 and rapidly spread throughout the Motorsport world, including Australia where the first race was held in 1968 and the first National Championship in 1970, won by Richard Knight in a locally built Elfin 600 and by Larry Perkins the following year also in an Elfin 600.
In New Zealand, the first National Championship was the 1971/72 series won by David Oxton also in an Elfin 600.
One of the reasons for the huge international interest in FF at that time was the Formula Ford Festival, a virtual "World Cup" of Formula Ford where many National Champions, including David Oxton (and the Aus national champions) were invited, the trip to the UK to compete being part of the championship prize.
The first FF cars internationally were mostly purpose built new cars, part of the very early regulation was a price cap of 1,000 Quid which was soon quietly dropped, but in NZ, apart from the Oxton Elfin, most early FF's were converted National Formula cars but very quickly the number of newish and competitive cars grew until by the mid '70's entries exceeded available grid positions and pre qualifying was required at many National level races. In typical NZ fashion there have been a number of very competitive locally built and designed cars over the years.
Amazingly after 40 years, FF is still the premier "feeder" class here and apart from Jim Richards and Paul Radisich, I can't think of a NZ driver who started any sort of international career within the last 40 years who has not spent time in an FF as they provided the ideal place to learn race craft, car set up etc all at a (relatively) affordable price and still do today.
Although the fields for the current championship are a bit thin, which probably speaks more about the current state of the economy, historic FF fields continue to be full with a supprising number of new (to NZ) cars being imported.
I understand that to the "non believer", an FF probably looks like a coffin on wheels and although the racing has always been close and hard, the cars are not spectacular to watch (and very boring to listen to) but here is the chance to post some photos or stories about an international success story.
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Originally Posted by Howard Wood
