Photos: The Sprague Family Collection

[Oldfart]

Probably being driven not quite as designed

[Steve Emson]

If you you did not lean over the other side....the car would fall over as mine did & Steve,s just about did.........

I guess you mean these photos.
I think it is fair to say that you and me Grant were the two quickest drivers in these cars. With all the lap records we held between us that kind of backs that up.

I put that down to our extremely quick fathers we both hung around as kids. Monkey see monkey do!

Oh,................we never had any head gasket problems, you must have planned the s&^% out of yours
Ha Ha!

[Steve Emson]

Nice XU1 shots Grant. I used to come home from school and back Dad's XU1 out of the garage and take my mates out for a fang. I hope they never told their parents about doing 120mph with the 15 year old driver at the wheel. I did a club circuit in one at Puke and was in the lead (my first race). looked in the mirror and thought S#$@ they are right behind me (They weren't really, just looked that way to the novice driver) overshot my braking mark and got 2nd. I never made that mistake again!

I raced another one in a long distance series and was quick, however the car kept doing water pumps. In fact that is how I got my sponsor for the Shellsport car. That drive was because TV1 wanted to do a special on me at Manfield. I took a camera man around the track and scared the crap out of him. Dad has a copy of that TV show however I never want anyone to see it. Cringe worthy big time!! To show how young we were, my girlfriend had to rush home from school to see that special, which was part of the Grunt Machine TV show. How is that,..............school girls rushing home to see there dick head boyfriend on TV.

How times have changed. Anyway sorry to highjack your thread. Interesting that we both drove Fiats, and XU1's, you drove a Mustang and I drove a XY GT Ph3 (replica) in Historic GpNC here in Brisbane. V8's were the best. I love them. Oh well,..................

[kiwi285]

yet some more photos

Gary in an E49 Charger


Gary in the Twincam Escort


Gary in the Matich workshop


Grants eulogy to Ernie


A couple of Ernie's great cars

[Grant Sprague]

lol Steve.... I do recall an issue of over heating at Teretonga.......... a head gasket was replaced & off to Levin we went ....only to find out after we practiced & raced [dnf,s] Ernie was not happy , the temp gauge went off the dial only to find out it was a radiator , that's probably the reason ....ummmm did you blow a head gasket at Manfeild ....might have been the Datsun 1600 but did read that some where hehehheheeh....... was over at the mount last week what did I see parked out side a wrecking yard on display A FIAT128 lol , I thought of you right away....they look so pre historic but yes we extracted the best out of them they just reved & never really broke .....golden years eh Steve..............., I have a couple of friends in historic muscle cars trying to entice me back in ,me like you had support from friends etc those have now moved on so would find it very testing to find the time to do it properly not to mention finding the other support $$ the only way to do it is to do it properly ....

[Steve Emson]

I read that somewhere also, however do not remember it. It would have been a Datsun 1200 coupe which was 1300cc and racing against Dennis Marwood who had a 120Y. Those were very quick cars, you would have enjoyed them. A very Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Regards to all,
Steve

[Grant Sprague]

Thank you Steve , same back to you & yr lovely family...........if u are up for a race we can meet at surfers and body surf down a few waves say best out of three........2015 ?????? ...........Grant...ps winner buys a beer or 4 .....merry xmas

[Grant Sprague]

Just re reading some stuff on PC...... Steve ......you mentioned the quick Datsun would this be the one as yr profile pik...on two wheels ????........ might have mentioned some time ago never saw you racing this or yr Pacific car as out of country ....would be great to see some photos of them both ...did see some a while ago on different links .....Re the Datsun [ Nissan] I guess reg Cook came along after he seemed to be quick also ....but like you weighed as a lite weight ........[power to weight ]
was at the front most of the time like the Emsons ................. have a fanastic 2015 Steve & every one here

[Rod Grimwood]

If I remember right, Steve came along and put uncle Reg in place.

[Grant Sprague]

He he ...... yep I could see that happening .........Hey Rod hope u good mate see you about 3 weeks .....

[Rod Grimwood]

Plumbing should be out in 2 weeks. Mate, I am that positive I have packed my sleeping bag for Hampton

[Grant Sprague]

Chud is taking big camper up , u can crash with him just take yr sleeping bag & 5 doz sleeping pils beer will not do it [ lol snooooooring ] I will catch you 2nd week & stay at Rangiriri Pub about 30 mins south of there .....out of ear shot of the .... snoooooring ......love the bantering he he

[Rod Grimwood]

There is a good group that camp there and last year we had a great catch up with the boys. Parkes and his crew held court last year so Chuddly will make it more interesting.

[khyndart in CA]

I had the pleasure of finally meeting with Grant Sprague on our brief trip to NZ. Grant made the time to share some articles on the family and although they are reproduced from photos I took of the original pages, it gives an idea of that era in NZ racing. I am not sure of the date but I think it was about 1970 when this wonderful photo at Levels Raceway was published.

Grant, thanks for sharing these, we enjoyed meeting you and wished we had had more time. As Judy said you seemed too nice to be a race driver..what ever that means !

( Ken Hyndman )

[Grant Sprague]

Thank you Ken .... the old news paper cutting getting a bit old ..[yr camera up to speed]..these guys were way up there , among others, a young looking four ..........Hi to Judy ....things change when the hard had goes on lol other wise we would not be serious & racing to be up the pointy end .......

[khyndart in CA]

Another of the Sprague family business.
I need help in dating this..could it be 1969-1970 ?
My input does not do it justice but here it is. Very cool. Note the makes that Ernie sold. He never seemed to be afraid of a challenge !

( Ken Hyndman )

[Noo Noo]

Another of the Sprague family business.
I need help in dating this..could it be 1969-1970 ?
My input does not do it justice but here it is. Very cool. Note the makes that Ernie sold. He never seemed to be afraid of a challenge !

[ATTACH=CONFIG]29586[/ATTACH]




( Ken Hyndman )

From my B&H programmes : in 1968 Ernie and Gary Sprague were in a Mk4 Zephyr entered by Lyons Motors Ltd
in 1969 Ernie and Leo Leonard were in a Victor 3.3 entered by Leonard Sprague Racing
in 1970 Ernie and Leo were in a Valiant VIP entered by Hepburn Motors Ltd

David Hunter

[khyndart in CA]

As Gary Sprague was close to my age I always admired the way he could keep his car under control as the tail always seemed to be hanging out. This scrapbook cutting from a race at Baypark 1969-70 in his Escort TC is a great illustration of this.

(Ken Hyndman )

[Steve Emson]

Hi Grant,

Sorry i have only just seen your post. I do have alot of photos of my Shellsport Datsun B110 coupe, however would not want to post them on this thread as this is about your family. That is a great shot of our Dads together after that long distance series.
if you are interested and seeing you have asked about it, I won the shellsport championship 2 years in a row. Reg Cook was the reining champion at this time and was the man to beat. We built my car from whatever parts we could get and never moved the engine back and all the other tweeks that he did. Fortunately we started winning and breaking all his lap records and taking the poles etc.
I was leading the championship from the second meeting we ran with a brand new unsorted car. Datsun then brought out the Cherry for Reg Cook to drive which was a full on factory deal, complete with the Japanese competition manager.
This car/driver combination could not run with my car at all. They then put Robbie Francevic in Cooks old car and ran as a two car team. Robbies job was to stop me winning the championship against the Quasi factory team. He was quite open about this to me and freely spoke about it as long as nobody else was around to hear.
They still couldn't stop me from winning, and things got pretty intense. A funny thing happened at Manfeild. In private practice i went quick, way under the record, and 'they' were in the stands timing me. Not long after one of the drivers came to me and told me I was a very silly boy. he said you should not have shown us how fast you are as we know we cannot do those times. He said we are going to take the fuel injected, dry sump works motor out of the cherry and put it into the coupe so Reg can beat you. They worked all night and did exactly that. The Schick car was bloody quick with that engine. I won again. In the last race of the season I was told they would take me out and i would not finish the race. And that is exactly what they did. Robbie was pushing me from the inside and Reg caught us up while we were locked together and hit me from the other side. My car was lifted into the air and my tyre valve was cut off on the right front. This was at the end of the back straight at Baypark. (We were seriously honkin at this point). I was out of that race.
I won the second (final)race easily. We all ended up in court, and the judge found Reg Cook quilty and was penalised and Robbie Francevic was reprimanded for their on track behaviour. I still have the summary of the Judge, and he makes no bones about it.
The second season Reg Cook did everything he could to beat me in the Cherry, but couldn't.
This all happened along time ago, but was an amazing thing to live through.
My little car was fantastic fun to drive, even if it wanted to run with opposite lock on and jumping up onto 2 wheels. You would have loved it. They were very quick in their day.
My best to you and your family.
Again, love the shot of our two Dads, and the master JR.

[Grant Sprague]

Steve.... what an interesting read....... or course unfortunately I never saw u drive that nissan but I can very well imagine what you would have been up against .seen it all before it takes the fun out of it when people sling shit like that .so the way to deal to it is the way you went about it PERFECT.....you had the woow factor Steve no two ways about it .......a shame you did not have a competitive.. pacific car too ......... as you know I left for UK when u & I finished GTX looking back it was still the right move as far as lifes experiences go ....... hey we had some fun eh............. I am getting my second wind & would love to do some more feel very confident might be historics who knows ......at least we have been there done that lol............. & the best to yrs my friend ............ Grant