12-1-71 NTRAT DALL Extre mely fierce competition and new ap and race recor Byr PETER GREENSLADE New lap and race records should be the order of the day in the 17th Lady Wigram Tro national motoring event, on Saturday. Competition should be extremely fierce, because neve matched drivers and cars in the race. Last year the Australian Frank Matich on from start to finish in a Chevrolet-powered McLaren M10A at an average speed of 101.4 miles an hour. His time of 59min 54.2sec mas Imin 0.4sec slower than the record set in 1969 by the posthumous world champion driver, Jochen Rindt, in a 2.5 Lotus 49BT Cosworth-Ford. Matica will be all out for a Wigram "double" with his new MeLaren MIOB, which is powered by the very promising Repco V8 engire, but his task will not be easy, for already in this Tasman series a number of drivers have shown that they have his measure. In the opening round at Lerin, for example, Wellingtonian Graham McRae and Sydneysider Niel Allen, both qualified their McLaren NI10Bs faster than Matich. Levin winner McRae curtently holds the Wigram lap record of 103.76 miles an hour. He set it in the race preliminary last vear and was pre-race favourite as a result. However, fire broke out in his McLaren M110A when petrol overflowed onto the hot engine in the course of the warm-up lap and cost him all chance. Matich, Allen, and McRae will not be the only front runners.. North America's main hope will be the expatriate Englishman John Cannon, the United States Formula A champion driver and one of the very few who, in Can-Am sports car racing, have had the satisfaction of heading Denny Hulme and the late Bruce McLaren - and in a NcLaren considerably older toan the special works cars of the two Can-Am champions. After running second to McRae for a considerable distance at Levin, Cannon was forced to slow when a tyre on his McLaren MIOB began to deilate. He finally finished fifth, but a measure of 'nis worth is the fact that he put in third fastest lap of the race. Dark horse? Although the former Aus tralian champion Kevin Barklett, did not shine at Levin because his Mildren-Chevrolet was suffering from lout oil pressure and deranged sus- pension, he did make second fastest lap there and could easily prove to be the dark horse in the Wigram field. His car, which has been entered by a regular Wigram campaigner, Alec Mildren, of Sydney, was designed and built by the well-known driver Frank Gardner and one of the top British designers, Lera Bailey, and, according to Bartlett, is the besthandlig Formula A - 5000 car he nas driven. But almost certainiy the car 'Gardner will be driving himself will be just as good if not better. It is the latest long-wheelbase Lola T192 and alito Chevrolet engined. The car has been entered hy Malcolm Guthrie Racing and Guthrie, himself, is driving the back-up car Althougn Guthrie is not in the Gardner class, he is a highly experienced young driver who has run among international stars such as Jackie Stewart, Grahamn Hill, and others in European Formula 2 races. Numerically. North American representation in the race will be strongest and, after Cannon, Mike Everly looks like heing the sironopst challenger in the contingent. Everly is the current American Formula B champion - a racing class that is roughly the equivalent of the now extinct New Zealand 1600cc National Formula, but is now making a switch to Formula A. He will be driving a Surtees TS8, the brainchild of John Surtees, the only man to have won both motorcycle and car world championships. Eyerly tested the TS8 in England late last year and Surtees was so impressed that he has given him full works support for nis New Zealand and Australian racing campaign. Also from the United States are Rich Galloway and Bob Brown, with a pair of Lola T190s. The pair will be running as a team, but so far luck has been against them, as they both crashed their cars before the international series opened at Levin. Galloway has been one of the top challengers in the American Formula A championship for the past three years and has also two seasons of Can-Am racing behind him Is expected phy race, the South Island's premier interer before have there been so many evenly Fourth in the 1969 American Formula A championship series, Brown turned to the rich Can-Am sportscar series last year and finished in eighth place, the highest placing of any private entrant. The only entrant from outside English-speaking courtries is Belgiur's Teddy Pilette, a comparative newcomer to Formula A-5000 racing but a highly experienced sports car driver who, at one time or another, has contested most of the classic events. Pilette will also be driving • Chevrolet-powered McLaren M10B and is racing under the sponsorship of Baron Van der Stratten, a well-known European patron. One Australian driver who should be much on a par with Pilette is Dan O'Sullivan, who will be back-up man to Matich in the latter's 1970 Tasman car, a McLaren 3I10A. But both will be hard pressed to bead off the young Aucklander, David Oxton, nto nas been going exceptionally well in a Ford Bocearprarod Tatua ro g4д Henderson's Frank Radisich, who has had a lot of Tasman championship racing with low-powered cars and is now coming into his element with the ex-McRae McLaren M10A. N.Z.s longest The Wigram circuit is 2.3 miles in length, the longest used for international racing in this country and, with its sweeping curves and few relatively slow corners. it puts a premium on power. something the big 5-litre V8 Formula A - 5000 cars do not As they develop between 450 and 500 brake horsepower whereas the older type of Tasman Formula car, with its 2.5-litre pure racing engine, probably does not develop more than 330 brake horsepower at best. In theory, if not in fact, this should put at least two topflight drivers at a disadvantage at Wigram. They are the 1970 Tasman champion Graeme Lawrence 12.4 Ferrari Dino V6) and the current Australian national champion Leo Geogbegan 12.0 Lotus 69 22223 HRAM TRIPT ROLE Lasman champre ‹irving the SiP Mar ration's newiv acqui BELOW: Winner o Wigram lap record on in 1969, the rch 701 to third p ired Lotus 70 wh of the opening r of 103.76 miles New Zealand inte place in the opening ich should keep hir ound this year at an hour, will be a McLaren MI0E ernational star Chr round at Levin, will i among the front Levin. Graham M trophy race favouri is Anon. seen here drive the STP Corporunners at Wigran. cRae, who holds the te in the Crown Lynn AN- WELARE CHANDON! 22