Old Race Tracks

[pallmall]

This is the Gloucester Park Stockcar Track while being built in 1961. There was stockcar racing at this track for three seasons until early 1964. The area is now covered by the Onehunga on ramp to the Mangere Bridge. The North Eastern part of the park still survives as a sports ground.
Gloucester Park has a place in NZ Motor Racing history as racing took place there in the mid/late 1930s. It basically replaced Hennings Speedway in Mangere, but the lure of the new sport of Midget Racing at Western Springs saw the end of both Gloucester Park and Hennings Speedway.

[AMCO72]

All Bill Beaver's hard work on No55, which I think is a Plymouth, is about to end up severely compromised. He should have the strengthend wheels on the front as well. I bet these guys raced hard and gave no quarter. As I posted in yards and yarns about the Rowan Atkinson film 'The Driven Man' when he was on a Fergie tractor having fun on the grass, with sheep as mobile chicanes, the speed would have been less that 20 mph, but what fun can be had at 20 mph. Same with these guys, sitting on a bare chassis with driveshafts spinning a few inches from their bums, the illusion of speed would certainly have been there. I really love these pictures, and thanks to the guy who took them, whoever you are/were.

[stirlingmac]

Heres a link to a site covering a speedway track that once existed in Lower Hutt near the Avalon TV studios..
http://www.historicspeedway.co.nz/TaitaSpeedway.htm
I believe it was only bikes and had sadly disappeared along with Lower Hutt's other motorcycle track the Gracefield street circuit in Seaview.

[pallmall]

Some photos from the Cullen Farm at Albany.


Bill Beaver car.


Bill Beaver building his Chassis racer.


And a couple more of Chassis Racers at Gloucester Park stockcar track 1962

[Steve Holmes]

Heres one Bob Homewood sent me. Bobs having some problems uploading pics to the site at the moment. Heres the info he gave me:

Here is one for the lost race tracks thread, it was at Cambria Park a ex US WW2 Army Camp in Wiri, South Auckland ,I am not sure how many times it was used but I do have a couple of photos of cars racing there which I can't post as are copyrights and I did some time ago speak with some one who competed there around 1957 he told me ,this is a old photo I researched and found of the camp ,from the description he gave me it matches the shape of the track that was used which I have marked with a arrow.This area has now been swallowed up in the construction of the Motorway through Manakau ,but I did manage to get a photo of the area I was told where the track was before the earth moving machines obliterated it,if theres any interest I can send that as well. I am actually keen to find out more about this venue and I am still looking and asking.

[stubuchanan]

Having remembered that there was a "Historic Aerial" function on the Auckland Council's map and GIS facility, I found and downloaded this aerial shot.


Cambria Park was a farm which was bordered by Puhinui & Roscommon Roads Puhinui Stream and the railway line.

Roscommon Road is at the left of picture, The road running off it was later Nesdale Av and is now a continuation of Cavendish Dr, and the track is the U-shaped piece that runs off it. This picture seems to date back to camp construction about 1941/42 as there are no camp buildings and a lot of the land still looks like farmland, which it didn't in aerials from a year or 2 later.

I have more info and photos re the camp, but almost no info about racing, which I gather was run by the Northern Sports Car Club, in 1957/8. Nestle build their Factory/headquarters the around 1959/60/61.

The outlin of the curve was still visible as a bare strip in the scrub behind the factory, and may still exist now south of the new S-W Motorway.

Hope this triggers a few memories.

Stu

[jim short]

Hi i have some vidio of Allan Woolf Ford 8 plus the Lycoming?? and others on this track amongst my collection

[Kwaussie]

Just north of Dunedin, Bill Waldron an earthworks contractor formed up a circuit in the early 1970's.
You could see it from the motorway and may possibly still show up on google earth.

[bob homewood]

Thanks for the photo Stu,back in 2006 Max Fisher gave me some instructions on how to find the remains of the curve at the Airport end ,he would have liked to have gone out there with me to show me ,but his health prevented him doing so ,following his instructions I went out and had a look ,work had proceeded by then on the Motorway and consequently most of that area had disappeared beneath the road works.

[woody]

Bob, Where the footbridge is (over the railway) in Puhinui Road, on the airport side is a plaque about the track.

[woody]

Kwaussie, The old Waitati track is now overgrown. The track was on the Waitati side of the Kilmog. Bill had to divert a creek to gain more room. He ran 3 or 4 meetings. There were not enough speedway cars, Ray Wilkie & Snow Morris were a couple. Waldroville killed it for Bill.

[Oldfart]

Nobody mentioned Seagrove yet.
Southern shore of the Manukau harbour. I went looking in the early to mid 1980s, there were still some of the hexagon concrete slabs evident even then.
Just had a look on the Auckland GIS viewer, I was surpised to see that the airstrips are still very evident. They are not clear at all from ground level!

[bob homewood]

I got some stuff on that coming,yes its still very evident from the air ,I have quite often seen it when flying in or out of Mangere if the flight plan takes you over there,I used to go out there a lot in the early sixties as I worked in the area ,there was even more perhaps to see in those times,a word though if anybody is going out there remember its now private land ,so don't enter without the land owners permission

Nobody mentioned Seagrove yet.
Southern shore of the Manukau harbour. I went looking in the early to mid 1980s, there were still some of the hexagon concrete slabs evident even then.
Just had a look on the Auckland GIS viewer, I was surpised to see that the airstrips are still very evident. They are not clear at all from ground level!

[Roger Dowding]

Nobody mentioned Seagrove yet.
Southern shore of the Manukau harbour. I went looking in the early to mid 1980s, there were still some of the hexagon concrete slabs evident even then.
Just had a look on the Auckland GIS viewer, I was surpised to see that the airstrips are still very evident. They are not clear at all from ground level!

A lot of stuff is scattered through this thread on Seagrove and recently quite a few photos from the Arthur Siddall albums now in Duncan Fox hands [ found at Whitford Tip by Duncan ].

Could be worth putting into a separate story - a bit like the Matamata thread that " Oldfart "started a few years ago.

I have also recently acquired a couple of Maps of the Seagrove Track - one from the 1940's and the other a more recent Google image.
There was a book written about Seagrove some years ago - must check out the details.

" jellywrestler " is writing a book on New Zealand Motorcycle Racing and has quite a bit of information on the track from a Two Wheeled perspective.

[jellywrestler]

A lot of stuff is scattered through this thread on Seagrove and recently quite a few photos from the Arthur Siddall albums now in Duncan Fox hands [ found at Whitford Tip by Duncan ].

Could be worth putting into a separate story - a bit like the Matamata thread that " Oldfart "started a few years ago.

I have also recently acquired a couple of Maps of the Seagrove Track - one from the 1940's and the other a more recent Google image.
There was a book written about Seagrove some years ago - must check out the details.

" jelliewrestler " is writing a book on New Zealand Motorcycle Racing and has quite a bit of information on the track from a Two Wheeled perspective.

Seagrove.... Where's that? by Max Poole I got a copy from Max, was about $90 he gets them done in very small runs, from memory he only really got what was pre ordered rather than kept a couple in stock. covers a bit on the car racing, more on the bikes. My book covers 156 differnt circuits in new zealand. this includes closed circuits, airfield circuits, street circuits and road racing circuits, (coutryside venues) it's getting close to being published, and i'll pop in here and advertise it no doubt. I will be selling it myself, at this stage apart from selected motorcycle shops that's my plan. A number of the circuits of course included cars, or probably more correct, the cars ran a meeting and invited the bikes.

[markec]

Alan Dick had some info sent to him that he put in his Classic Driver mag a few years back, from memory, some of the roads that were used around the Nestle's plant were still there.That's Cambria Park.

[markec]

http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi...int&thread=881, there is a bit of Cambria Park info here.

[markec]

http://www.vintagecarclub-northshore...ember-2011.pdf.
If you go to page 14 in the above link, there i a discription by one of the participants who was one of the originators of Chassis racing at the Cullen farm in 1961.It is a PDF form so it takes a moment to load.

[stubuchanan]

http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi...int&thread=881, there is a bit of Cambria Park info here.

And reference to another Homewood. There is a photo of the memorial plaque mentioned by Woody a few posts back, it only refers to the military camp. There is also a similar plaque at Seagrove at the end of (?)Seagrove Road, at the edge of the old airfield.

The curved part of the Cambria Park track is still visible in aerial shots South of the South-Western motorway as a bare patch amongst the scrub. I guess only grass and weeds would grow on top of the asphalt track.

There are two other places of motor racing interest only 2-3 kms from Cambria Pk. The site of the proposed "Manukau Park" GP track and speedway, and the Wiri Container Terminal which was used by some sports car clubs, and also the "bucket racing" motorcycle enthusiasts. The container terminal has long since vanished, but I recall seeing sports cars racing there some time in the 1980's.

I will post a map or photo or 2 tomorrow if time permits.

Stu

[pallmall]

http://www.vintagecarclub-northshore...ember-2011.pdf.
If you go to page 14 in the above link, there i a discription by one of the participants who was one of the originators of Chassis racing at the Cullen farm in 1961.It is a PDF form so it takes a moment to load.

Yes, that is the excerpt from the previous link, by Warren Fox.
There are some discrepancies from other material we have from Warren, and from some others involved. I am just sorting through quite a bit of material at present and once I have checked some stuff from those that are still with us I will try and post the 'correct' story along with some cuttings and photos.