GARDNER'S N.Z. GP

TASMAN ROUND ONE

GARDNER'S N.Z. GP

by David Lang, Auto Action Tasman roundsman

Graham (Cassius) McRae leads the pack in his self-built Leda GM-1. He was sidelined briefly with gear selector trouble. His car is the showpiece of the series, up-staging even the futuristic-looking Lo/as.

Photos direct from Jack Jn wood in NZ.

AUCKLAND (NZ) -Frank Gardner grabbed an early Tasman Championship lead with a faultless clear cut victory over Mike Hailwood and David Hobbs in the 19th New Zealand International Grand Prix at Pukekohe on January 8.

It was the veteran Australian's seventh start in the race and his first win, at the wheel of his works Lola T300, ended a long run of outs in past years.

But his triumph was overshadowed by a monumental accident eight laps from the finish involving New Zealand drivers Graeme Lawrence and Bryan Faloon.

Their cars clipped wheels at the notorious kink in the main straight as Lawrence, doing close on 170 mph in his new Lola T300, came up to pass Faloon's 2-litre Stanton Porsche. Both cars shot off the track and were wrecked.

Faloon later succumbed to his injuries and Lawrence suffered a broken wrist, broken ankle, shock and other minor injuries.

The crash sparked off a bitter controversy about New Zealand motor racing safety standards for both drivers and spectators.

Gardner's victory, from the number two spot on the starting grid, came after defending champion Graham McRae was sidelined on the third lap with a broken gear linkage in his sensational new Leda GMI

McRae had forced the pace in practice, getting down to a blistering 55.2 seconds 114.13 mph lap - 1.5 seconds under Frank Matich's existing lap record - to claim pole position.

Gardner responded with a fastest lap of 55.6 seconds to take the other front row place.

McRae jumped to the front from the Indianapolisstyle rolling start and was 1.5 seconds clear of Gardner when he lost all his gears and was forced into the pits.

His mechanics jammed the car into fourth gear so he could carry on, but McRae lost three laps and finally finished tenth.

After inheriting the lead, Gardner was never seriously challenged, finishing 26 seconds ahead of Hailwood, who drove a consistent race in his works Surtees TS8A and who in turn was 4.1 seconds ahead of Hobbs in his works McLaren M22.

The fast 1.75-mile Pukekohe circuit was streaked with oil from several major blow-ups, so that Gardner's winning average was a relatively slow 106.33mph.

And Matich held his lap record because of the greasy conditions, Gardner putting in the fastest race lap of 56.9 seconds - 110.17 mph.

Kevin Bartlett, only .4 sec. behind Hobbs in his McLaren MI0B which had won the race in Niel Allen's hands last year, was the best-placed resident Australian.

His fellow countryman Max Stewart was fifth, 6.1 sec. behind Bartlett, after his first race in his new Seiko-Elfin in which he was unlucky not to score third place.

Hobbs, Bartlett and Stewart figured in a thrilling race-within-a-race for most of the 58-lap, 101-mile classic.

Belgian's Teddy Pilette captured sixth place in his McLaren Ml0B after running in reasonably close company with Hobbs and Bartlett for much of the way.

The first six placegetters all went the full distance.

Adelaide's John McCormack was seventh, a lap behind in his Team Elfin Ansett-MR5, carrying the orange and white colors of Ansett Airlines, while his team mate Garrie Cooper, driving an identical car was 13th after a stop to replace a punctured rear tyre.

America's Evan Noyes filled eights place in his McLaren Ml8, while New Zealand's Robbie Francevic was ninth in the same McLaren Ml0B in which McRae won last year's championship.

Then followed McRae, Ken Smith in a 1.8-litre Lotus 65B, Peter Hughes in a New Zealand-built Formula 5000Begg and Cooper.

Australia's top Tasman Championship contender, Frank Matich, failed to finish after a dismal race in his Australian Grand Prix _winningRepco-Matich A50.

Matich had been dogged by bad luck throughout practice and, after starting from fourth place which he held until lap 19, his oil tank came adrift through a broken strap and sprang a leak.

Matich restarted after the tank was replaced, but his engine blew up in a big way soon afterwards, on lap 25.

Keeping Matich company, New Zealand's Frank Radisich also had an engine failure in the former Team Matich McLaren-Repco, as he was passing the pits at full chat.

New Zealand's up and coming David Oxton was another casualty, his Begg being forced out with a split radiator and other damage after he had run over debris left behind after the Lav. rence/Faloon crash.

Run in fine, sunny weather, the race drew a huge crowd of more than 40,000 spectators who set the stage for Pukekohe's traditional picnic atmosphere by spreading themselves out on the grassy areas around the track, which is combined with a racecourse.

They reserved their biggest round of applause, apart from the enthusiastic ack now I edge men t' of Gardner's victory, for Australia's Allan Moffat.

Driving his Trans-Am Mustang, Moffat won both the main supporting saloon car races in fine style and the second race saw him come from the rear of the grid to humble New Zealand's top touring cars and drivers.

PRACTICE FOR THE NZIGP was spread among four 60-minute sessions on the Thursday and Friday. But several drivers took the opportunity to do some private practice earlier in the week.

They included Hobbs, who started out well with a 57.1 sec. lap before his engine disintegrated.

Hobbs had arranged for a spare engine to be flown from England, but this had failed to arrive and he quickly got on the phone to the US and arranged for a Boltoff-modified Chevvy engine to be airfreighted from Los Angeles to Auckland.

In the meantime, his mechanics assembled a mongrel engine from bits and pieces so he could at least qualify.

Matich had a few exploratory laps on the Wednesday and was well pleased with the car's form.

The opening session on Thursday saw most of the cars turn out, with the greatest interest being created by McRae's new fat bellied car, wearing STP's bright red colors and a host of advertising signs representing his various sponsors, STP, Crown Lynn pottery, Castro!, Goodyear, Champion and Morand, the Swiss firm which has prepared his Chevvy engines for the series.

Among the various F5000 cars, the Leda GMl was easily the most distinctive apart from the futuristic looking Gardner and Lawrence Lolas which of course had been previously seen in action.

McRae lived up to his nickname, Cassius, by declaring he would eventually shave two seconds off Matich's record.

He had not run the car before and he soon showed its considerable potential by opening in rne :iti sec. bracket and getting down to a 56.5 within 17 laps.

Then he turned up the taps, finishing the day with a 56.3. ·

But Hailwood was credited with the fastest lap at 56.2, in the second session, even though no-one in the pits had him faster than 56.8.

Gardner missed the first session \\'.hile still clearing tyres through customs, but came out in the second session to claim third fastest time of 56.4.

Matich's problems had already started.

After posting a 56.8 in the first session he blew a head gasket and was not seen again during the day. His mechanics took the car away to replace the gasket. But he ran into the same trouble soon after the start of Friday's practice and this time his mechanics swapped engines, returning to the circuit too late for further practice and the necessary tasks of scrubbing tyres and bedding-in brake pads.

The ill-fated Graham Lawrence leads Briton, David Hobbs in the McLaren M22. Lawrence's car was handling poorly from the start of the race.

Everyone's times came tumbling down on the Friday, but the real battle for pole position was between Mc Rae and Gardner.

Both their cars were simply flying and McRae, holding good to his work, was first to break the 56 seconds barrier.

Showing it was no fluke, he then reeled off five consecutive laps all under 56, while the best Gardner could do was a neat 56.

But his Alan Smith prepared Chevvy engine had lost its fine edge, due to a flat battery and the second session saw him get into the 55s.

A shower of rain temporarily delayed the start of the second session but McRae was into it again as soon as the road dried out. Again, he was consistently in the 55s, while everyone else except Gardner struggled unsuccessfully to break 5ti.

McRae piled up lap after lap as he stormed around the circuit, stopping only occasionally to fiddle with his roll bar and shock absorber settings and tyre pressures.

His fellow drivers were somewhat stunned at the car's form, besides being puzzled how McRae could use 500 rpm more than them, revving his engine to 8500 rpm on the straights and still keep it in one piece.

But the engine stayed on full song and McRae finally finished up with an unchallnged lap of 55.2, confident that the car had the potential to get under 55.

Gardner had a nasty moment on the straight when a front tyre pulled off a rim. He had lowered his pressures by 2 psi by way of experiment, but quickly reverted to the normal pressures.

Stewart quickly got the hand of the Seiko-Elfin, lapping faster and faster after initially running out of brakes, to wind up with a 56. 7, a most creditable performance in his first time out with the car. The grid positions were allocated as follow :

Following the usual preliminaries, the grand prix began with an exceptionally clean rolling start which saw McRae immediately forge to the front as the colorful procession of cars streamed through the fast right-hander past the pits.

The first lap order was McRae, Gardner, Hailwood, Stewart, Matich, Lawrence, Bartlett, Hobbs, Pilette, Francevic, Oxton, Noyes, Radisich, Cooper, Canadian David McConnell in his beautiful little British-built two-litre GRD, the ill-fated Faloon, Smith, Baron Robertson in a 1.8-litre Brabham BT23 and Peter Hughes.

Lawrence spun out on the next lap and dropped to the tail of the field, forcing him to make up a lot of lost ground and indirectly leading to the subsequent situation in which he had his accident.

McRae was gaining very slightly on Gardner but when the field roared by to start the third lap, Gardner was corn fortably in front in the Lola, appropriately carrying number one, ahead of Hailwood, Stewart, Matich, Hobbs, Bartlett, McCormack, Pilette, Oxton, Francevic, Noyes, Radisich, Cooper and McConnell.

Lap six saw McRae back in the race in his one-gear car, the New Zealander having decided to press on to learn more about his car and try to finish amongst the money.

The leading order remained unchanged, Matich still feeling his way with uncertain brakes and content to tail Stewart.

But Bartlett and Hobbs - doing his best .to keep the revs down on his new eneine fitted the previous night - were already hard at it in a nose-to-tail duel that was to last for most of the race.

Pilette slipped by McCormack on lap 15, but could not quite close up the gap to Bartlett who was hounding Hobbs for all he was worth.

The strap securing the oil tank on Matich's car broke, fracturing as it dragged on the road, so that the red Repco-Matich began to trail oil a II around the track.

Matich did not realise it was his oil, thinking it was coming from another car. while the marshals were not observant enough to spot all this and ask for the black to be shown.

But Matich nearly spun on his own oil on lap 19 and immediately pitted, to reappear again briefly on lap 25 before a con-rod ventilated the block at the start of the mainstraight.

Lap 29, the halfway mark, saw Gardner leading by 10.5 seconds from Hailwood, who in turn was 9.4 seconds ahead of Stewart.

Then, there was a gap of 12 seconds to Hobbs, who had pulled out a three seconds advantage over Bartlett. Lawrence had picked up some of the lost places and was rapidly closing on McCormack, who was running a lonely race after being outdistanced by Pilette.

There were no further dramas until about lap 40, when it became obvious that Hobbs was making up ground on Stewart, whose car was suffering fuel feed problems on the mainstraight.

Stewart tried vainly to hang onto his third place, but the gap between the yellow Seiko-Elfin and the orange McLaren narrowed until Hobbs finally passed Stewart on lap 48.

ABOVE: Consistency had David Hobbs up on third spot for the NZ GP. Here he is closely followed by New Zealander Frank Radis:ri.. in the ex Match McLaren M10B Bond was to drive in the serf.

Jack In wood photo.

Cooper had picked up a metal fragment from Radisich's engine on Pit Straight and he came in on lap 43 with a flat left rear tyre.

Lap 52 was a fateful one.

McCormack and Lawrence had been hard at it, running nose to tail with Lawrence trying to pass the Ansett MR5 all around the circuit.

On the following lap only McCormack appeared and it was obvious something had happened from the reaction of the crowd.

A dust cloud and a cloud of fire smoke near the notorious high speed kink towards the end of the main straight told the grim story.

Later we were to learn that Lawrence's airborne car had cartwheeled several times, crashed over a nearby railway embankment, cannoned against the side of a stationary passenger train waiting to take people from the circuit and plunged back down the embankment to come to rest against a telegraph pole, completely broken in two.

Lawrence was still strapped in his seat with virtually nothing of the monocoque around him, but the engine still behind him. Miraculously, he was still alive, even though the force of the accident had ripped off his crash helmet.

Faloon's car plummeted straight ahead into the embankment and although it was nowhere as badly damaged as Lawrence's car, Fa Ioon, an asthmatic, later died on his way to hospital.

He had received immediate on-the-spot treatment from a doctor and his injuries were said to be not particularly severe.

The smouldering wreckage of the Lola actually started a grass fire, although this was quickly extinguished.

The spot where the cars went off was the same point where Denis Hulme and Laurence Brownlie tangled in the 1968 grand prix and landed in hospital with fairly serious injuries.

There have been many other incidents there although Faloon's death was the first New Zealand Grand Prix fatality since Ken Wharton was killed at the previous Ardmore track in a Ferrari sports car in 1957.

All this cast a shadow over the finish of the race, but it did not detract from Gardner's thoroughly professional performance.

He never put a wheel wrong, but he admitted afterwards at the victory presentation that McRae's temporary retirement had made his job a whole lot easier.

Hobbs made up a lot of ground on Hailwood in the closing laps, when Hailwood's car started to misfire because of a flat battery.

Like Gardner, Hailwood also drove an immaculate race and the Surtees is a very different car from the one in which we saw John Surtees relegated to a minor place in the Australian Grand Prix last November. And Hailwood drove the race without a tachometer!

With nine points on the board and the two leading Australasians Malich and McRae scoreless, Gardner has made a very good start in what should be a really competitive series.

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