14-1-69 -.-- 15th .•cdi-uo International Lad Trop Wigram hy Race... Sat Jan 18 DRIVERS HAVE DAY TO GET FEEL OF CIRCUIT ALTHOUGH four of the seven overseas drivers contesting the 15th International Lady Wigram Trophy will be racing on the fast aerodrome circuit for the first time, it is unlikely that this power-driving course will hold any mysteries for them by the time the starter's flag falls on Saturday afternoon. With all Fridav tol admiration in Grand Prix: likely to be much con-!man, has been racing for less' Frank Williams to build him learn the circuit, new- racing circles. cerned about having to than five years. He started off a special car to run in this! comers to it such as the But champions made contend with Hill. As No. 1 in a Lotus 7 Clubman sports| Tasman series. world championionly to be toppled from their Ferrari driver, Amon fre, car, graduated to Formula Graham Hill, his It is based on a Brabham! Aus- thrones and none of the other: quently bad Hill trailing along 3, where he quickly made a but is powered by the trian team-mate Jochen overseas drivers will be over- behind him in year's name for himself, and then Cosworth-Ford V8 engine Rindt, Englishman awed by the presence of this Grand Prix. races until switched to Formula 2 at the in the Gold Leaf Team Lotus tralian Leo. Derel Bell and the Aus- popular champion in the field. i mechanical troubles sidelined beginning of 1968. • entran Geoghegan, him. His Wigram mission will be will be just as nell, Team-mate Amon is regarded as one to give Amon all the help he At Disposal equipped to do battle as of the quickest in the can and at the same time be the Wigram "reterans." And that will apply to his Fourth at Wigram last year, New Lealander Chris 26-year-old new team-mate. Grand Prix "cireus" and has ready to step into the breach Courage, lap times to prove it. with around Amon, Englishman Piers: Rindt, as much as any of the Last he ran and go all out to win if Amon brake horsepover at his dis- Courage and Australian others. year Clark has to drop out of race posal compared with 220 Frank Gardner, say Rindt is the world's top bard at Wigram and fnished for any reason. or so he had last time, will nothing of the resident Formula 2 driver and that is only 8.5sec behind the Flying! A good showing in this Tas- certainly be a front runner. saying a lot, for this 1600 c.c.i Scot. A measure of his worth man series could mean Williams IS more than toyleading lights, Roly single-seater racing categery is to be found in the Wigramla lot to Bell, Levis, Graeme Lawrence so he will being with the idea of entering in probably fercely record book because Amon really trying all he knows. and others. the Grand Prix feld this year. ¡competitive and often just as! land Clark shared a new lap Nothing more Another driver with a tre- If Courage makes the grade he Winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix in 1968 and again this year, the Ferrari team leader, 25-year-old New Zealander Chris Amon, could prove the than that the race will beling. certain fast as 3-litre Formula I rac- record of 104.02 miles an hour mendous amount at stake in 1968. is will be the driver. hardest man to beat at Wigram on Saturday. Like last year's car, Amon's new car is based on the Formula 2 Dino model but is fitted with a Courage, •a member of the Gardner, the tall, amiable dominated by the overseas Enzo Ferrari is reckoned famous English brewing fam-and 2.4 litre four-valve head V6 engine which develops aboat 300 brake horsepower. After an in-and-out season! seemingly easy-going stars and Hill, who has con-with the Cooper Grand Prix! tested more than ¡to be the hardest taskmaster ily who, like Rindt and Bell, Australian who undergoes 100 world team, Rindt took over New in international racing and he is a 26-year-old. After skirting marked personality change and birthday next month, looks like championship Grand Prix and Zealander Denis Hulme's place who Will celebrate his fortieth in the Brabham team last obviously has complete confi: round the fringes dence in his young New Zea Prix racing, Courage decided culating customer behind Ann tutor of Grand becomes a cold and cal- the! Two Decades of Racing on Circuit ¡ year. because he has he was going to be right in wheel of a racer, is an old By Brewer, and New Zealanders have and other top-ranking inter-/Amon, who will be leading the the R.N.Z.AF. Station, being the man one of the nominated him as his Mr J. A. Wig- This looked like a champ- sole, or right out. campaigner at Wigram in the President, Motor Racing won international acclaim. national drivers on the start-| Ferrari team on Saturday, had ram, as well as a band of others will have to beat. Formula driver the ionship-winning berth for the It was for this reason that cars of his Sydney sponsor, Club Some of you will readily reing grid. not even achieved that status enthusiastic volunteers from Hills mission is, of course, hard charging Austrian, no. coming world title series. he decided to run as a private former Saturday some all walks of Christehurch life Australian champion' will be a call that first Wigram meeting, Nor in his wildest dreams might cause for to maintain the proud Tasman cause Hulme had won the This will be the frst occa entrant in the Tasman Alec Mildren. notable occasion in the but I am sure that no one who mould anyone have forecast on sober reflection. The years, Championship and Wigram re world title in 1967, following sion on which Ferrari has series in a relatively uncom- British saloon car champion history of New Zealand that day that, within two de like racing cars, speed by with cord established for Gold Leaf in the footsteps of his BOSS fielded only one car in petitive Formula 2 McLaren- for the last two years, Gard- motor sport, for the Zealander- increasing rapidity! Team Lotus by his late friend Jack Brabham, who had won series and he would not De FA cades, a new ner is equally at home in ifteenth International Denis Hulme-would Motor racing patrons and team-mate, Jim Clark. it for the third time the pre taking this unusual course if By the end of the series, sports-racers and single-seaters Lady Wigram Trophy a word _слатрюв ана yetla great debt of gratitude to But his task will not be vious year. he did not have faith in Amon. Courage was right in because and has many meeting will mark two scored another New Zealander, Bruce the pioneers of 20 years ago! an easy one for he will be! However, the 1968 Brabham-l he scored points from every successes, although the fates decades of motor racing Graduated McLaren, would establish who had the courage to intromatched against a formidable Repco V8s proved unreliable race and climaxed it all by often conspired against him in on the aerodrome circuit himself not only as one of the duce racing in atte array of young talent, all dri-land Rindt had little chance. of However, Ferrari has stated winning the final race at Long- his Tasman sorties. lat Christchurch. Prix grand vers who must be rated poten- demonstrating his prowess. At that world's leading Grand manner New there possibility Ford, Tasmania. He could be the dark horse It is exactly 20 years since drivers but also as one of the Zealand. tial world champions. the end of the season he join- that he will field There was Grand Prix in the Wigram feld, because New Zealand's first long-dis- Hill, who won his frst world ed Hill manufacturers of! But we must not forget that! in Gold Leaf Team second car late in the season contract with Tim Parnell to the new Mildren car, powereditance car race was held on was there that day ever: racing cars. the growth in stature of the who, by their efforts, have title in a B.R.M. in 1962 and Lotus - not as No. 2 driver and if he does the man most drive a factory-backed B.R.M.by a V8 Alfa Romeo engine. this circuit to lay the founda- visualised that Wigram would For those of us present at!meeting has been due to the made this annual sporting fixhas, among innumerable other but as an equal. This means likely to get the drive will be V12 last year and the Old'is a very can dea design tions racing as we be the scene of international that first Wigram meeting the wholehearted co-operation of ture possible. stecesses, an Indianapolis 500 that if Rindt can beat Hill at Bell. Amon's Wigram team- Etonian put up a bold show- and is certainly the most po- now It-a highly races such as the one we will fact that on that day Hulme. the Air Department and suc- To all these good people Victoru to his aradit