Blast from the Past

[Trevor Sheffield]

When I went to my first NZ Grand Prix at Ardmore in Jan. 1959, the first car to roar by as we had just entered was Brian Tracey driving the ex Ron Roycroft Alfa Romeo Tipo B. It seemed so big compared to the other cars that were there and it did not qualify for the main race.
Perhaps Brian was still having handling problems like he had at Ahuriri as shown in these Hawkes Bay Photo News photos.
(Ken H )

Interesting facts concerning the handling of the Roycroft Alfa.

Ralph Watson. --- After a few trials, the wandering was cured by an increase in castor angle. This was done by making stepped keys to replace those which prevented the axle beam from rotating in the clamps which held it to the chassis. We made three sets of these keys which provided varying positions offset from the original position and this enabled us to experiment with changes in castor angle.

It is exceedingly interesting that there was no evidence of any change having been made on any previous occasion. One must therefore assume that the car would have been handling badly when Nuvolari drove it to win the 1935 German Grand Prix! What is more, it appears that before the Alfa came to N.Z., previous owners Kenneth Evans and Roy Salvadori, both criticised the handling of the car.

Note : When the Alfa was restored some 30 years later, the stepped keys were incorrectly fitted in reverse. This resulted in the handling of the restored car being sharply criticised by a well known N.Z. motoring journalist, who wrote about it and caused incorrect stories to become accepted and reiterated. It was implied that the stepped keys were an original component, whereas they were made and fitted in N.Z.

Refer here for full details:-

http://ralphwatson.scienceontheweb.net