The Roaring Season

Getting back to the thread title, Old race tracks, when I lived in Christchurch in the 50's there used to be a track round the perimeter of Lake Bryndwr on the northern side of the city. I didn't ever go to a meeting there, but we used to water-ski on the lake itself. This would have been about 1956. I dont think any of the races there would have been for 'Chassis Racers', but I suspect all sorts of hum-drum saloon cars of the 30's and 40's. That seems to be what these old machines were reduced to, as Pallmall has said, nobody wanted them. I'll bet George Smith and Co also went there to do some skids. The whole area is probably a housing estate now, if it hasn't been shaken to bits by the earthquakes.

AMCO72 wrote:, just a sympathetic cocky with a 4 acre paddock will do.......a bit like a souped-up gymkhana.

23 acres here ready to be used!

Thats great guys, but under whose banner do we 'race' these jalopies. Is a bit like oldfarts race class with near standard pre 60 cars.....the problem is finding them; and the raw material for 'chassis racers' would be even harder. All chassis-less cars from about 1955. No, I'm sorry, it's all over. You had your chance back then; if you didn't take it, tough luck!!!!!!!

AMCO72 wrote:Thats great guys, but under whose banner do we 'race' these jalopies. Is a bit like oldfarts race class with near standard pre 60 cars.....the problem is finding them; and the raw material for 'chassis racers' would be even harder. All chassis-less cars from about 1955. No, I'm sorry, it's all over. You had your chance back then; if you didn't take it, tough luck!!!!!!!

Not quite an old enough fart to have taken advantage back then!

The Chassis Racer days ,never went there ,but I had a cousin who did ,made one out of a old Model A that had been converted into a truck,now that's vandalism at it's extreme. They used to race at that Alfriston track in the photo and also at Lowry's farm in Papakura on the grass Kart track there ,which incidentally is where my motor sport career started in Karts on the grass,with 197cc Villiers power

Gerald, Markec asked me to post these for you, said you'd enjoy them.

I know its not a now defunct circuit but 1963 and 1970 pics of Pukekohe

The lower picture certainly is of an "old race track". The picture sits in the National Archive (or Alexander Turnbull Library) with the unhelpful label of "Pukekohe 5.1.1963" - no mention that 5.1.63 was the date of the first Pukekohe NZ Grand Prix. The despair of historians when photos are not labelled sensibly!

Stu

http://theracingline.net/racingcircuits/NewZealand/index.html,

There's a few here I haven't heard of.

Hi Guys,

Very late in the 60's (I think), my father bought 12 acres of land at the southern end of the Albany straight, from I believe, Mrs Cullen. When we got possession of the land there were quite a number of what I now know, from this thread, were chassis racers. They were rusted and immobile at that stage. They were quite big scary looking things.

Part of that land is where the Albany Junior High School now stands.

Around that time, just down the road was where car painter Lyall Martin worked from. I was there one day when he was painting the ex Silcock Jag for Steve Millen in that lovely blue.

Mark

I think the Cullen Farm was on Albany Highway and the corner of Golf Road.
Hopefully I will have the loan of a scrapbook very soon with photos of the racing there.

pallmall wrote:I think the Cullen Farm was on Albany Highway and the corner of Golf Road.
Hopefully I will have the loan of a scrapbook very soon with photos of the racing there.

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I'm sure that's where I ran in a couple of m/cycle, scrambler-type races, using a BSA B31G in a Norton frame that (allegedly) had been built and raced by Bill Russell. This would have been in the mid-60's period.
The events seemed to be attended by the chassis racer themselves, plus the usual friends, significant others and that's about it.
On more than one occasion. I saw a car being reduced to chassis status by the simple ( and effective) means of placing a pole through the front door window openings, then towing it between a couple of conveniently placed trees.
Chassis-racer safety?....NO...nothing in the way of safety for the drivers....seats were often apple crate-style. Oil and coolant would often be oozing at every pore. Petrol sometimes fed from a strategically placed gallon tin
Spectator facilities?.....a grass bank and a quick dash behind those same trees when nature called.
The potential for injury accidents was great, although , to be honest, I never saw anyone come close to being hurt...probably because the chassis' being raced, were on their last legs anyway-----speeds were not very high at all.
I would love to see any pictures being posted
Neville Milne

Neville, Chassis racing was started in Auckland in the early sixties by Warren Fox and his friend the late Lou Shilton. Warren has written about it in a book he has published on the net. http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Easy/00000026.htm As I now live on the Shore I was interested that they used to race on a trotting track in Glenfield. I grew up in Onehunga in the 1960s and remember when they held the Chassis racing World Championship which I recall was won by local wood merchant Bill Beaver. As a secondarary school boy I was intrigued how they could run a world championship amongst a group of Aucklanders.

The Historic Stockcar Club archives has items and copies of photos from all three of the people mentioned in GeebeeNZ's post, I will dig out a few interesting things to post soon. I am also told there are some photos taken on part of the old Cullen farm in the eighties that show the relics of old Chassis Racers still there even then, hopefully along with the scrapbook I am waiting for we may be able to put together some interesting information.
Thanks for those who have posted information and anecdotes, I have passed them on to a couple of guys who will add this stuff to the archive information.

GeebeeNZ wrote:Neville, Chassis racing was started in Auckland in the early sixties by Warren Fox and his friend the late Lou Shilton. Warren has written about it in a book he has published on the net. http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Easy/00000026.htm As I now live on the Shore I was interested that they used to race on a trotting track in Glenfield. I grew up in Onehunga in the 1960s and remember when they held the Chassis racing World Championship which I recall was won by local wood merchant Bill Beaver. As a secondarary school boy I was intrigued how they could run a world championship amongst a group of Aucklanders.

This brings back old memories from when I used to live in Onehunga. Colin Park had NO fear, no nerves at all....would do anything on a dare; he was (is) one of life's real larrikans and a heck of a nice guy. He, Roy Fisk and I ran around together...it was Roy who sold me the BSA and Colin who talked me into racing it up at Albany...not that m/cycle, scrambler-type racing was much of a feature up there, in those days.
ISTR that Colin always wanted to be a farmer and eventually went down Raglan way to manage a farm; Roy went to OZ and I ended up in the US

This is such a cool thread!

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

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.

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.