In the days before TradeMe, the ‘go-to’ place if you were interested in buying a car for competition was Autotrader.
So, it was to Autotrader I deferred when I decided it was time to follow karting mates Simon Gamble, Cliff Field and Dave Good ‘up the ladder’ to Formula Vee (now Formula First).
Actually, that’s not quite right. Being the sort of obsessive, compulsive researcher I am, I had been reading EVERYTHING I could lay my hands on about both the formula and the cars that either were, or were about to come up for sale, for the past year.
Not just in Autotrader either. I also followed race reports in the (late, great, sadly departed and yes Grant, still very much missed, SpeedSport magazine) plus devoured any other article about the class I could find, usually via the odd Aussie or US mag.
Also, I already knew a bit about the category thanks to what was probably my first foray into motorsport publicity; giving mate Ian Christie a hand with promo and PR when he landed a serious sponsor – Victory chocolate – for his debut single-seater racing season way back when I was living and working in Wellington (sometime last century!)
In terms of theory, then, I was better prepared than most. In practise though, I found out fairly quickly that I had a lot to learn. Though (spoiler alert), that’s the subject of next week’s column.
Back to Autotrader. As I flicked through the pages of the competition section one afternoon at Ron Dixon’s kart shop in what now is the Viaduct Basin part of Auckland’s redeveloped waterfront precinct, one car stood out.
It was the Frank Wright-built Vee driven the previous season by Bernie Gillon.
Now, a year before this I had got as far as bowling round to Mike Eady’s place in St Heliers to have a look at – and sit in – a car he was selling. But at that point I still hadn’t really decided whether or not I did want to sell all my karting gear (which is what people did back then) and go through all the additional drama of owning, preparing etc etc, my own car. And when I had (decided to sell my Kiwi Kart Uno and my #1 Brendon Smith-built KT100 engine to ‘go racing’) the car was long sold.
But I digress. And there’s more to come, so sorry, you’re going to have to bear with me this week.
Though I didn’t get to race a car until I was 32, I had been fanatical about ‘going fast’ since I was gifted my first (wooden) trolley (soap box) when I was 8.
I actually won the Gore Festival Week trolley derby (in my second light, flexible and very fast, tubular steam pipe spaceframe model) in 1972 and was keen to step up to a kart way back then. As it turned out, however, ‘life’ got in the way.
Even had I been able to find a kart to buy with the $500 (a King’s Ransom back then) I had saved at that point, finding somewhere to store and work on it, let alone someone with a driver’s licence, car (and trailer) and time to transport it from Gore to Invercargill and return once a month, were cold, hard realities well out of the reach of the 12-year-old son of a recently-widowed solo Mum.
I kept saving what I could from holiday jobs but this, for those of you who were around at the time (1970-1975), was when the first Japanese ‘trail bikes’ arrived and because it was so much easier to own (and race one) cfm a kart, well, let’s just say that my obsession moved from four to two wheels for the next 20 years!
That, no doubt, is where it could have stayed, too, had I not joined a bunch of Waitemata Motorcycle Club members on an excursion to an indoor karting joint in Auckland’s Panmure one evening a couple of lifetimes later.
Talk about the scales falling from my eyes! For a start I could not believe how similar the view through the visor was to that of the in-car-shots which had started to supplement the ordinary race coverage in F1 and IndyCar in those prehistoric (i.e. pre-GoPro) times.
I also found myself instantly competitive (which came as a bit of a surprise!)
For most of the bike club guys there, the night was nothing more than a pleasant diversion from the serious business of racing, working on or selling motocross, enduro or trail bikes.
For me though it marked the start of a journey I am still on.
Less than a week later I had my nose pressed up against the window at Auckland’s Roundabout Kart Shop and three or so months after that was the proud owner of a nice, clean Yamaha KT100-powered Kiwi Kart EX
I’ve written about karts enough though, over the past month. This week’s column is about taking the next – and arguably biggest step – in any driver’s career, from karts to cars.
It might be different if you start your motorsport journey in a lightly modified road car at club level. But because I started mine in a kart the most natural next step was to a single-seater and – as I said at the top of this piece – Formula Vee (or Formula First as it is now called) is, and has been for the past 50 years, the next rung on the ladder.
Over the years there have been plenty of what the kids today would label ‘haters,’ bad-mouthing the VW 1200-based class for everything from the cars themselves being ‘too slow’ and/or ‘ugly’ to running componentry which is ‘too old.’
The reality, though, is that the category continues to do what it started to do a half a century ago; which was provide a stable and cost-effective platform for an eclectic mix of (usually older) class stalwarts and young guns with stars in their eyes to mix and mingle at a level each group feels comfortable with.
When I started there were still several techie types who built as well as ran their own cars. These days though most appear to start with a Craig Greenwood-designed and built Challenge model or one of Dennis Martin’s Sabres.
It’s no coincidence that by far the majority of our current crop of world-beating young drivers got their ‘car’ career start via the Formula First-based SpeedSport Scholarship programme originally set up by Grant McDonald and Dennis Martin but now run exclusively by Martin.
As 2017 winner Conrad Clark said on the eve of heading to the US for a test in an F4 car which is now one of the bonuses of a Scholarship win;
“In terms of coming to grips with extracting a lap time and setting the car up, the processes you learn in the scholarship are vital in furthering your career.”
Which – in a nutshell – is why Ron Dixon bought (with my assistance and blessing!) the Bernie Gillon car.
When we first discussed Scott’s next step (which I have written about in a previous column) Ron had in mind a Class 11 Formula Ford; thinking that he would have to tootle around tracks like Pukekohe and Taupo (as they were then) on open test days until Scott was 15 and could legally race it.
That all changed when I pointed out that MotorSport New Zealand has set up its innovative and as it has turned out, truly world-beating, Junior Licence system for drivers ages between 12 and 15 years of age.
While he could have gone ahead and bought a Class 11 car (which he did 12 months later) and run Scott in it, Ron – rightly as it turned out – decided that a year in a Formula Vee would give his just-turned-13-year-old a better grounding.
By that Ron was thinking in terms of simple things like learning to change gears, though as he quickly proved, Scott had other ideas…like winning races and eventually the 1993/94 title.
He did so at a time when the ‘old guard’ – the likes of Rob Lester, Dennis Martin, Craig Greenwood and Dom Kalasih – were at the height of their powers, too, and in beating them to the title that year, helped focus attention on the category at a time when it most needed it.
The result was a sea-change. To the point now that if you are at all serious about a career racing cars in this country your first port of call after karts has to be buying some track time with Sabre Motorsport at Manfeild then once you have got to grips with the car and the class, putting yourself through the SpeedSport Scholarship programme.
You don’t have to win it, because what you will learn will stand you in good stead for everything from having a bit of fun in an old Starlet at club level to moving up through the ranks in a car of your own for a season or two, then a Formula Ford (F1600), TRS or tin top.
And if you don’t believe me, I don’t mind. Just accept the fact that I am going to go all smug and say ‘I told you so’ after you ask the very same question of former Speedsport scholarship winners Liam Lawson, Nick Cassidy, Richie Stanaway, Andrew Waite, or Shane Van Gisbergen. Or fellow local series graduates like – say – seven-time class title holder Michael Shepherd or the other current Supercar steerer who got his circuit start here in a Formula Vee/First, Andre Heimgartner!
Next week. What a Vee/First is like to drive (and race) plus the key lessons you learn which you can apply to any other class of racing; from F1600 and right up to IndyCar or F1!
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