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Post by pallmall on Apr 14, 2009 21:55:49 GMT 12
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Post by tank11 on Apr 14, 2009 21:58:15 GMT 12
Those lights would get taken out these days........
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Post by pallmall on Apr 14, 2009 22:01:11 GMT 12
Those lights would get taken out these days........ They did in those days.  |
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Post by Go Slideways on Apr 14, 2009 22:21:08 GMT 12
On behalf of my unborn Grandchildren & their offspring, I say thank you Pall Mall. My current info is:Ray Street, is a retired long-time engine builder in Palmy. Today Ray gave me the picture below of #88 MKIII Zephyr stockcar he helped build and crewed for in Palmy. The picture was taken on 23rd December 1965. Ray is at the wheel. The car was owned by Alan Hart of Harts Panel & Paint in Main Street. It was prepared at Engine Rebores on the corner of Church & West Street and driven by Don McNabb. It ran triple carbs through a worked head & utilized 2 barrow loads of cement in the boot for traction. The red, white & black stockcar was either driven to Harts then towed to the track or just driven to the track and back. It was a near new car at the time, and fast.   |
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Post by wal86 on Apr 14, 2009 23:05:40 GMT 12
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Post by kale on Apr 14, 2009 23:05:51 GMT 12
I didnt show up in Palmerston Nth as a spectator until 1969 .. Ray New was promoting the show and by then the terraces would have been built .. the drums, steel cables and windrow took many a prisioner making the racing even more exciting. Broken railway irons were a common delay and if you got 8 races in one night you got your moneys worth. Besides the legends of the time racing as the Panthers, I recall a competitor by the name of Noel Phipps who had a sign on the back of his car stating "Panthers pass at thier own risk". A bold statement he often defended until he too found himself racing for the black team.
I have the negatives of a few early cars including the Panthers, however these have been reproduced many times and were distributed by Graham Eikins so dont know if it would be worth having them printed and posted on this thread.
Albert Gorge was a frequent visitor to the track as was Gary Scott, both of Stratford fame and both legends in thier own right. They kept the locals on thier toes and made for some magic spectator racing.
Trivial pursuit time Pall Mall .. there was a hard case character by the name of Don Puklowski who owned and ran a service station/workshop in Feilding, could this be the same person as the one you mentioned in the thread ? This guy dropped a V12 Merlin aeroplane engine into a boat just for a bit of fun.
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Post by kale on Apr 14, 2009 23:20:29 GMT 12
The trip down memory lane can be a slow drive but while the cam is on the boil and after veiwing the Merv Foster pic I remembered (among many) from the early seventies a lady by the name of Betty Harris from Marton who was a regular at P - Nth. She wasnt quite as quick as everyone else but it added a whole new slant to the nights events.
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Post by Go Slideways on Apr 14, 2009 23:24:46 GMT 12
Trivial pursuit; Don Puk was a mechanical wizard who could fix anything. I remember going to Brian McKay's car wrecking yard in Gladstone St, Feilding as a boy to witness Brian and Don fire up the huge V16? Alison or Merlin aircraft engine in the hydroplane boat. The sound was something else.. cleared the rats off the yard and covered everyone in the shed with dirt from the rafters. My ears rang til tea time. The local cop showed up after noise complaints and just hung around grinning in awe. Years later I took my own boat to fish at a Foxton contest and was gutted to find one of the wheel bearings on the tandem trailer had collapsed, Don turned up, chained the axle up and said "no worries". We launched the boat on 3 wheels and went fishing. When we returned to the wharf Don had fixed the trailer using an old Studebaker bearing he had been saving which he modified to fit. Bourbon time for Don. Don told me about putting rocks in his petrol tank to get the level up to the intake so he could get his mates home from a party... A really top guy, I bet he'd be a good stockcar driver too. This Arden Conversion Y Block Ford V8 was imported from USA by Kairanga farmer Ray Mullett in about 1959/60 and was used in his vee bottomed speedboat for a short time. It ended up in Don Puk's possession a couple of years later. Was it used in a Palmy stockcar?   |
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Post by pallmall on Apr 15, 2009 18:31:28 GMT 12
The trip down memory lane can be a slow drive but while the cam is on the boil and after veiwing the Merv Foster pic I remembered (among many) from the early seventies a lady by the name of Betty Harris from Marton who was a regular at P - Nth. She wasnt quite as quick as everyone else but it added a whole new slant to the nights events. Betty Harris is/was a real character and we spent some quality time with her and some of her family at the 75th Reunion in 2006. I got Betty to pose sitting on Stan Ruka's historic stockcar because it was similar to her old car and was also the right number. Betty took us through into the other hall and showed us some photos and stuff from her racing days and told her life story basically, fascinating stuff. Betty even had a drive in a Ministock on the Sunday.    |
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Post by craigsvo on Apr 15, 2009 19:28:11 GMT 12
yes that was our ministock 118p.
she loved the drive and is a real nice lady,she enjoyed her time in the car and wanted to go for another drive haha.I will see if i can find a photo im sure we have 1.
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Post by Tony on Apr 16, 2009 15:51:34 GMT 12
I didnt show up in Palmerston Nth as a spectator until 1969 .. Ray New was promoting the show and by then the terraces would have been built .. the drums, steel cables and windrow took many a prisioner making the racing even more exciting. Broken railway irons were a common delay and if you got 8 races in one night you got your moneys worth. Besides the legends of the time racing as the Panthers, I recall a competitor by the name of Noel Phipps who had a sign on the back of his car stating "Panthers pass at thier own risk". A bold statement he often defended until he too found himself racing for the black team. Kale - might you have meant Brian "The Pig" Philp? #27 from memory - a driver who would always have a go at anyone daring to pass him. As for the overhanging track lights - Big Bad Charlie did indeed take several out with an end-for-ender on Show Night around 1972. |
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Post by kale on Apr 16, 2009 17:30:45 GMT 12
You could well be right Inventory1 .. Im basing everything on memory alone .. Charlie certainly was a showman, especially the coffin stunt and the time he chased the start jeep in Brew 22.
The Hawii Five O theme music was often used at the start of the nights racing .. great stuff at the time.
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Post by pallmall on Apr 17, 2009 21:06:32 GMT 12
The Charlie B versus Ray New chase was a bit before the Brew22 days, it would have been the 64/65 season when Charlie was driving the #10 ex Graham Mitchell car. Here are some more photos from Season 1. The Pringle Motors car that was driven by Jim Mark. (Photos coutesy Mike Pringle).   And as mentioned in the best teams thread that got this thread going, the Auckland Team raced against Palmerston North at the 3rd Meeting. Auckland winning with a 1, 2, 3 finish. It was a different matter in the Feature with Sam Ferabend's car getting written off at the start. The Auckland cars were painted in Teams colours, a first for a provincial team. 16 Sam Ferabend surveys his wrecked coupe.  10 Graham Mitchell  37 John Scott  81 Peter Rae  99 Garth Souness  The Auckland drivers listed in the Palmy 25 year book are not correct, and in fact I still haven't got a conclusive answer as to who raced for Auckland as even the drivers concerned cannot remember. This is my probably correct list. 16 Sam Ferabend 10 Graham Mitchell 3rd in Teams race 99 Garth Souness 1st in Teams race 81 Peter Rae 2nd in Teams race 37 John Scott 6 Joel Wright raced a car at Palmy, but I have yet to establish what car he had for the first season and the second season. Graham McLachlan and Eddie Sutherland did not race at Palmy although they are listed in the 25 year book. Wee Mac was there as he helped tow the 99 car down. |
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Post by YankeeClipper10H on Apr 17, 2009 21:16:24 GMT 12
What colour were the Auckland team cars painted?
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Post by pallmall on Apr 17, 2009 21:23:16 GMT 12
Auckland colours, Blue and White.
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Post by pallmall on Apr 17, 2009 23:13:49 GMT 12
This is an Aussie article on Kenny Barlow and the Australian stockcar team at Palmy in 1965. Interesting comment regarding the Charlie B incident. And there is a photo of Ray New's famous Jeep.    |
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Post by Tony on Apr 18, 2009 8:50:33 GMT 12
Great stuff PallMall - you are bringing back so many memories for this old fella! And I bet that WiseOwl went a bit weak at the knees when he saw that piccie on page one of all those pristine, white drums neatly lined up on the pole-line.
It's interesting to see a number of those 60's "stock" cars without rear wheelguards. If I remember right, there was a fatality in Palmy some time around 1967-68 (give or take a year or two either way) where a wheel came off a car and hit someone in the crowd - and the crowds in those days were massive. The move to compulsory wheelguards quickly followed.
And John Mancer? Sheesh, I'd completely forgotten that name - not only writing about speedway in the local paper, but the "voice" of Stockcars at Palmerston North in the early days.
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Post by pallmall on Apr 18, 2009 10:43:14 GMT 12
Interesting about the rear wheel guards. When Ray New decided that stockcars would be the answer to television and the dropping speedway crowds he adopted the UK style of cars that he had raced in England in 1954 and 1955 as "Steve Storm".
That is why there were no rear wheel guards, he also had a maximun weight of 25 cwt. Ray also acted as if he introduced stockcars to NZ publicly, despite the fact that he went up to Auckland and purchased quite a few old Epsom cars to sell in Palmerston North for his first meetings. Most of the Auckland cars were a lot heavier (28 to 30cwt), so a lot of steel had to be cut out of them, a problem the Auckland guys coming to Palmy to race found. Most of the Auckland team cars were ex Stockrods, a lighter, non contact class that were racing at Gloucester Park at the time.
Anyway, yes there was a fatality at Palmy when a wheel went over the fence and killed a spectator, and that prompted the introduction of full siderails/wheel guards.
I have a few more photos, articles, and clippings to add to the thread over the next little while.
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Post by porry41 on Apr 18, 2009 19:51:18 GMT 12
re ray new & engine re bores .we had a engine re bores in Hamilton also .in London st a branch of the other one .who also had there celebrity staff & stockie drivers at forest lake . Merv fox 44h & Kevin ohanlon ??h whom i ran into at huntly sat nite crewing on a saloon car .there was also ken mott a real wizard with stock car motors could machine any thing into any thing including the mechanical nite mare side valve hawk motor in my sunbeam talbot saloon car featuring a commer truck crankshaft chev rods s/v ford pistons 60 thou of the head used to blow spark plugs out ;D till they were spot welded in ;)vangaurd cam & s/v ford carb .commer gear box & zephyr unlocked diff .man could that thing go .nothing could touch it at tokoroa .but crashed it & wrote it off in a road race 8-)but thats another storie  |
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Post by pallmall on Apr 19, 2009 8:55:36 GMT 12
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