The Roaring Season

Steve Holmes wrote:Roger Dowding asked me to post this here:

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Jeff wrote:Alan Woolf - what a legend !

As patron of Hibiscus Coast Motorsport Club he had a hell of a sense of humour and it still shows now.
I saw him interviewed on t.v within the last few years while racing and he was asked " What does your doctor think of you racing at this age ?" ( he's 80-something )
He replies quick as a flash - " for christ's sake, don't tell my doctor ! "

Amazing guy / amazing family

John McKechnie wrote:Bob- you must have quite a large library of all this.
Funny the things you see looking at the hillclimb events then- just read Gisborne Car Club, August 1969 Rod Coppins won it in his 1938 Chev Coupe.
What has happened to all these off road events, is there anything now for this new generation?

Jeff wrote:Yes I certainly agree Jac Mac.
I looked at building up a little ( Daihatsu Charade ) club car a few years ago to compete in local hillclimb / bent sprint / car club events for fun but discovered I couldn't "just run" a road car cheaply.
A home made sumpguard and half rollcage these days has to be built and inspected by an engineer etc...
and it just gets sillier for "just a bit of fun".
It's a shame but it's the way the world has gone

Ross Hollings wrote:My opinion for what its worth is that several things took place in the 60/70,s ,one of these being that before you could go circuit racing you had to do 3 as i remember speed events,now these would be hillclimbs,bent sprints,standing 1/4 mile etc.After you had completed these successfully you then moved onto the circuit side of things,you then had to wear 3 stripes and be observed that you were ok to be out there.This meant that every new driver had to attend these introductory to motor racing type of events.It was quite a big step up to go onto the circuits,not to forget the cost to go faster.Along came the club circuit at Pukekohe and that changed things drastically,i think the licence system must have changed along the way then also [??].So most folks then could go to the circuit direct and not do hillclimbs.Another fact was rallying came along.....one big hillclimb you could say,boy i wish i had been envolved then,would have loved to do something longer than 2 minutes on gravel! I suppose the final nail in the coffin was the difficulty in staging events with all the regulations etc and the spresd of housing.
Just as an aside,i competed in a couple of events 6 years ago in my Humber 80 Special,these events were a combined local car club and classic car type club.I was not impressed with the standard that the local cars were presented at the start and looked more like cars from a Waikaraka stock car event. In my day if you turned up in a less than well presented car at a hillclimb etc you were certainly told about it
As an aside,I always remember Jim Richards turning up for hillclmbs at Bombay,he would be 'A' frameing his 1200cc red Anglia with a Anglia van also in red,this was tunned up also,both immaculately presented,one meeting his race car played up so he did the hillclimb in the van,and did a very quick time.!!!!!