Ray Race Cars is a British race car manufacturer which was founded in the late 1960s by Bert Ray, brother Frank and his son Gavin. In 1971 they produced a complete Formula Ford, the Ray 71 and are still manufacturing new chassis in 2020.
Last week Talkmotorsport highlighted three more Ray cars that are currently in the process of being imported into NZ for the 2020/21 South Island Formula 1600 Championship. Two are brand new Ray GR20s’ and the other, the 2008 Formula Ford Festival winning Ray GR08 which at the time was driven by current IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden. (See IndyCar champ’s Formula Ford one of three Ray chassis’ heading down under).
These three will join four other Ray Formula Fords that have been competing in NZ for a number of years.
Marc Doran competed in a couple of the South Island F1600 rounds this summer in his Ray 86F. His father Greg Doran bought the car in 2001 for his sister Carmen to race. It was this chassis that she won the Class 2 national title.
It’s unclear who may have raced this previously. Manufactured in 1985, it first made its appearace at Pukekohe in December of that year.
“The car sat in a hanger in Wanaka from 2008 until I was offered a drive in an Audi R8 last year so I pulled it out and dusted it off to use over the winter,” commented Marc Doran. “It’s been 14-years since I had been on the track. We have used the car to compete in a few classic meetings over the summer and the South Island round at Highlands in January.
“The car is currently sitting in my garage and I will look at what racing I’ll do next summer, possibly the South Island’s or maybe just a few classic races.”
This particular model (86F) won the BARC Formula Ford Junior Championship in 1987 with Derek Higgins as the driver.
The most successful period for Ray Race Cars was between 2006 and 2012 with Cliff Dempsey Racing. They won the Walter Hayes Trophy from 2006 through to 2010 using Ray GR05, GR06, GR07 and GR08 chassis, and again in 2012.
Ray was the winning chassis in the Formula Ford Festival (Kent Festival) in 2007 (Keith Demsey – Ray GR07), in 2008 (Josef Newgarden – Ray GR08) and 2010 (Neville Smyth – Ray GR09).
David Kircher and son Henry Thomas-Kircher have been campaigning on and off since 2005, a Ray 87F. This car was originally brought into the country by Kiwi Motorsport’s Garry Orton. It spent some time at the Canterbury Motor Racing School with John Crawford before the Kircher’s purchased the chassis.
Tauranga’s Kim Crocker has campaigned a Van Diemen Stealth for many years. However, in 2019 he sold the car to his mate Tony Graham and purchased a second-hand Ray GR014 out of the UK. He competed in four South Island Series rounds over the summer, often finding himself battling with Graham’s Stealth. He did finish on the podium at the opening race of the sixth race at Teretonga Park in Invercargill
Young Josh Bethune switched from a Mygale chassis to his new Ray GR17 during the 2017/18 summer of racing and then compaigned the chassis throughout the 2018/19 South island and NZ Formula Ford championships. He won the South Island title for the second consecutive season and finished runner-up to Jordan Michels in the national championship.
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