16-1-73 22 Graham Nefae on the way to his record min at Levin last Saturday, Tasman champion in 1971 and 1972, MeRae is already well and truly or e 1973 ladder a digram sonin his lickae Gul proud put him in a favourable position for a hat-irici GRAHAM McRAE HEADS LIST OF CHAMPIONS Champions and cha prise the majority of th International Lady Saturday afternoon. Heading the list is Graham McRae, formerly of Wellington, but now based in Poole, Dorset, where he designs and buids his own racing cars, four of which have been entered for the trophy race. Winner at Wigram last year, NcRae was Tasman Cup winner in 1971 and again in 1972. Since then he has won the rich North American L and M series in his McRae G.11 and finished third in the European Formula 500 championship. United States racing commitments having prevented him from contesting all the races in the European series. Top adversary McRae's major adversary in this part of the world is the current Australian Gold Star champion Frank Matich who. like MIcRae, is highly ampionship drivers comne field for the nineteenth ligram Trophy race on regarded as a designer, engineer, and driver. Matich builds his own cars at his beadquarters in Cremorne, North Sydney, and, as far as engines are concerned, has the influential backing of Melbourne-based Repco Engine Derelopments Ltd behind him, as does John McCormack, winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix, who drives the works Elfin, which is built in Adelaide. Matich and McCormack are the only drivers using the Repco V8 engines, which now derelop 490 brake horsepower, considerably more than they did in the last Tasman series. The other drivers. McRae among them, in the big Formula A-5000 V8s are using highly modified versions of the American Chevrolet engine. prepared by such tuning wizards as Al Bartz in the United States. Peter Moiloy in Australia, Race Engine Services and Allen Smith in England, and Aorand in Switzerland. COMPETING ON SATURDAY... Apart from the minner. McCormack, the Australian contingent did not fare too well in the Grand Prix. Nerertheless, every member of it is a potential front runner and Matich, of course, currently shares the Wigram lap record with McRae. Max Stewart (Lola 1330) and Kevin Bartlett (Lola T300) are seasoned Tasman campaigners and former Australian Gold Star champions, while Bartiett won the rich Repco series of races in Australia last year. Latest Lola Stewart's Lola T330 is the latest car from the successful English manufacturer. It has a smalier front area and wider track than the 1300 models of Bartlett and the up-and-coming 22-year-old Sydney driver, Warwick Brown, who was robbed of a good Grand Prix placing when a fuel line broke three laps from the finish. Brown is a newcomer to Wigram, but he is extremely competent and settles down on a new track quickly, so should not be at a • diSadvantage. Although the United States is one of the strongholds of Formula A-5000 racing, catering as it does for the lusty and typically American production car V8 engines, the Tasman series has not attracted a really top class U.S. driver until this year. The man in question is 28year-old Sam Posey, a New Yorker who began his racing career in 1965. Since then he has driven single-seaters, sports and saloon cars with conspicuous success in his own country as well as in Europe. Last year Posey repeated his 1971 form and finished second behind McRae in the North American L and series and was also the first rookie home in the Indianapolis 500, finishing fifth. He will be using his L and :M Surtees TS11B at Wigram and on hand to extract all the power available from his engine will be Al Bartz, himself. Entered by California's Champ Carr Inc, Posey is the best prepared American to race at Wigram. He has come equipped with enough spares to build up a second car and has four engines. Also from the United States is Evan Noyes. He is no stranger to Wigram, having raced here twice before, but in uncompetitive cars. This time he nas a MCRae GM1. He could provide a surprise because he was among the faster qualifiers in U.S. races last year and is happier on faster tracks, such as Wigram, than the slower ones, such as Pukekohe and Levin. Britain is also strongly represented by Alan Rollinson, 29, and his cousin, Stere Thompson, who will be 25 next Tuesday. They finished second and third respectively in the Grand Prix. Fcurth in the European F3000 championship for the last iro years. Rollinson has the distinction of being the winner of the fastest Formula A-5000 race run to date - that at Monza in 1971 where he averaged a breathtaking 145 miles an hour. Rollinson, who is driving a works MIcRae GMI at Wigram. is fast and steady and shows up to advantage when the weather is hot -a likely event at Wigram. Thompson, who began racing go-karts in 1964, has come up through the ranks. on the way being one of Britain's leading Formula 3 drivers. Last year was his first season in Formula A-5000 racing. He drove a Surtees TS& and had a win, a third, and two fourths in the Euro- pean series. At Wigram he will be driving a Chevron B24, one of the best Formula A-5000 cars racing today. Although he was suffering from a bad attack of 'flu and was haring his first race in the Chevron, Thompson showed his worth by finishing third behind his cousin in the Grand Prix. If McRae is discounted, New Zealand's main hopes for a Wigram win rest with the Aucklanders David Oxton sad Garry Pedersen, who will be driving the locally designed and built cars of the successful Southland designer-constructor, George Begg. National Gold Star winner this season and last, Oxton, 26, is widely experienced. having raced in the United States and Britain. His car is the latest Begg FN5, which is similar in many rspects to the MicRae Pedersen. national sports car champion last season, is used to coping with plenty of power. He has already proved a thorn in the side of Oxton this season. His Begg FM4 is the car Oxton used last season and with it Pedersen drove into a determined fifth place in the Grand Prix at Puke- kohe. Wellington's Dexter Dunlop is the only other local man running a competitive Formula A-5000 car. It is the Leda GMI ' now called a McRae! that MeRae used to win the last Tasman series as well as the L and M series in 1972. Although the 5-litre Tasman Formula V8s will dominate the trophy race, there should be some keen competition for minor placings and an excellent race within the race among the drivers of the 2-litre Formula 2 They will include the New Zealanders Ken Smith and Baron Robertson in the latest March 722 models. Canadian Dave McConnell (Surtees TS15). Noritake Takahara, the first Japanese to race at Wigram. in a Brabham B136. and Christchurch's Kelvin Cameron in a Brabham BT23C. A surprise entrant could be the 1970 Tasman champion, Graeme Lawrence, who is now fully recovered from the injuries he received when he was involved in the crash in which Bryan Faloon lost his life in the 1972 Grand Prix. Winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix, Adelaide's John Mc- Cormack will be out to complete the important North - South Island "double" at Wigram on Saturday in his Elfin Repco. Lawrence, undoubtedly the most experienced local driver • string of suc- cesses in this country as well as South-east Asia, has a new Surtees TS15 on its way from Britain. If it arrives in time he will be making his comeback in single-seater racing at Wig-