8-6-57 18-6-57 Fine Car Racing on New Circuit THE Motor Ba the best roac It can offer and average speer dereluperl. cing Club has I racing cireuit • drivers and st * in the region found at Southbr available in the ( pectators racing nu of 100 miles an h ridge what is potentially conutry to-dar. p to European standards vour, if it can be properly If by some good fortune thi sponsors at Southbridge can ge the long straight sealed and thi with his Cooper-Bristol, and to the local man. Bob Blackburn. race from the back mark to take third place in the 42 miler for sports models. club can obtain permission to race on ine circuit regularly, there is ever possibilit of turning the course into a real international circuit that mould knock every other circuit in the country into a cocked hat. As the meeting last Monday proved. this is a circuit that quickiv sorts out cars and drivers. There were only five finishers in the Southbridge Hundred. And bouquets went destredly to the winner, George Palmer, who gave one of the best exhibitions of motor racing seen for a long time Blackburn. one of the frontmarkers. drove a little Mistral sports car-a tipe he is manufacturing locally--and it never missed a beat. He was a model of consistency. Good Drivers Sports car drivers Frank Cantwell and Peter Pinckner, with XK 140 Jaguars, and Ray Archibald, with X 120, could give some of the so-called top-flighters something to think about with faster mounts. Archibald drove a magnificent Cantwell drives right to the limit and had a mellearned win in that race. Pincknes kept with him until failing brakes put him out of the running. By the same token. Ian McKellar, who took second place in that race with his little Cooper- Climax, is another who could handle a more potent car without trouble. With the Southbridge circuit and the right cars, these are some of the men who could well give overseas drivers something to think about. PRANA CANTWELL, in his XK140 Jaguar, fitted with a C-type motor, drore to the limit to win the 42-mile sports car race at Southbridge on Monday. This race provided one of the most exciting duels of the meeting and showed Cantwell to be a driver with great possibilities in open class racing. This Could Be N Car Track IF the Christchurch Motor Racing Club can influence the powers-that-be to tarseal the main straight of the Southbridge circuit it used for its Queen's Birthday meeting, it will have the best car-racing circuit in the country-and that includes the Grand Prix course at Ardmore. WITH its long full-throttle But the meeting, like those straights, tricky open bends earlier this fear, was further eviand brake-testing sharp corners, dence that car racing on this 42-mile South Island course grand scale is at the cross-roads could. with development. be in New Zealand. i brought_up to the best European There are few drivers with the istandards. It would demand the ability io hold their own with beti best of driver and car alike, and it iter class overseas drivers, and is the type of course overseas even fewer with the right cars for drivers prefer. To put it plainly, the job. they are not enthusiastic about Unless something can be done to driving on adapted aerodrome cir-'give local men more experience, SUPER SQUALO FERRARI started from the back mark in the Southbridge Hundred, but Wellington driver John McMillan could get no further up than third in it. and unless sponsors can ensure more even matching of cars, overseas drivers will continue to romp away with the lion's share of the staxes in the future as they have done in the past. Although no one would want to be unsporting, the cold facts are that motor racing is perhaps the most expensive sport for competitors in this country and unless the local men can hold out some hope of getting even a small return in stake money only the most wearny and the most enthusiastic will continue to make up fields with overseas opposition. It not appears to be the right time for the Association of New sealana car cruds to get down to work and devise a iormula iot cars to ensure that the local men who are likely to compete against overseas drivers will, at least, have mounts of similar capabilities. Already one English motor sporting journal, commenting editorially, on the New Zealand racing season just ended, has suggested that British drivers intending to .I's Best compete in New Zesland could well think of using competition Jaguar and Aston Martin as well as other sports car engines in single-seater cars to race in New Zealand. Perhaps a formula along these lines could be worked out. Ine position as it stands at present borders on the ridiculous Overseas drivers visit the country each year, collect all the plums with their cars and then dispose of them to local men. The following year they, or their overseas colleagues, return with new cars infinitely better than the ones they left behind them. They cannot be blamed for doing that, but as the dwindling gate takings of the last season or two show, New Zealanders like to see their own men putting up & bold front and they are not going to pay out good money to watch overseas processions. The answer lies with the organisers of the New Zealand Grand Prix and the Association of New Zealand Car Clubs. If they don't do something smartly it will be too late. Certainly the Southbridge circuit properly developea colla be lapped at least 100 miles an hour by the right men and the right cars.