23-7-75 Wigram date announced The Lady Wigram Trophy Race will again be held on la Sunday next year, and the date chosen for the meeting is January 25. Practice for the day's races will be held on the Saturday. The programme for the Lady Wigram meeting this year has not yet been settled, and the names of the trophy race drivers will probably not be announced until about November. The president of the Motorsport Association (MI R. W. A. Forst) is now overseas seeking prospective competitors for the series of four New Zealand international races. The Motor Racing Club, the organisation of enthusiasts which exists exclusively ¡to put on the trophy race (meeting, is now 25 years old -an anniversary which will be marked by a club dinner •this week-end. A major change in the organisation this year will be the man heading the club: the president for two-thirds of the club's life, Mr J. Brewer, has stood down, and ithe new president is Mr R. Rutherford. Mr Rutherford was a noted Christchurch racing - driver for many years, in both single-seater and saloonracing events. More recently he was, with Mr Errol Inwood, responsible for the organisation and promotion of major race meetings at the : Canterbury •Car Club's Ruapuna Park racing circuit. Mr Brewer will remain on 22-11-75 Old Lady WOOS Euro pe's fast men By PETER GREENSLADE Some new faces and a revised layout that should give spectators a better view of the action will be features of the Lady Wigram Trophy motor race at Christchurch on January 18. European-based Formula 5000 drivers who Will race, will probably be Brian Redman, Alan Jones and David Purley and, perhaps, Guy Edwards, according to Ron Rutherford, president of the Christchurch Motor Racing Club. Australians Max Stewart, Kevin Bartlett and John McCormack will be back accompanied this time by three young teraways who are impressing Aussie fans. They are John Goss, Paul Bernasconi and Bruce Allison. New Zealand's top F5000 men, former Basman champion Graeme Lawrence, Kenny Smith, who currently leads the national Post Office Savings Bank series, and Jim Murdoch, will be starting. To give patrons an unimpeded view of the action at the tricky hanger and control tower bends, the pit and paddock area will be moved from the infield to the outside of the circuit just beyond the exit from the bairpin which slows the 180 miles an hour single seaters to a snail's pace. 22-11-75 SAFER PIT AREA The uncluttered infield will improve viewing and the new pit area will be safer than those used in the past. Apart from the trophy race the programme wil comprise yet another round in each of the national Shellsport, GTX and Formula Ford series, sidecar race in place of the traditional solo motor-eycle races, a gokart race-cum-demonstration and, as usual, the super saloon race that over the years has proved to be the heart-stopper of the day. Although northern hemisphere F5000 racing does not capture the headlines of the world championship series in this part of the world, the men who are coming are tops in their class in Europe and the United States. Redman, for example, is the current United States FA-5000 champion and former European champion. He has also made his mark in CanAm sports car and Grand Prix racing. Alan Jones is regarded as one of the Australians most likely to succeed in Europe. Racing's in his blood. His father Stan won the first New Zealand Grand Prix to be held on the old Ardmore circuit in the Australianbuilt Maybach Special, which was powered by the engine from a German tank captured in the Westeren Desert in World War 2. SMALL BUT POWERFUL This pair will drive cars They are smab, ligntweight Bi fitted with 3.4 litre British-des Essex engines rather than the mon 5-litre American Chevrolet never seen before here. ritish March models, but igned and built V6 Ford heavier and more comengines that, up to now, have been standara equipr Purley and Edwards, have performed well in Puriey will probably driv wards a Lola. ment in 175000 cars. like Redman, are English and this year's European series. e a Ford V6 Chevron and Ed- Goss had made his name in saloon before switching to a Repeo V&engined Matich A53 for the Stuyvesant series last season. After turning in a qualifying time that put him among the top men in Australia he won the last race in the series at Sandown Park, Melbourne with style that could put him among the favourites at Wigram. The young talent, something that has been lacking in recent years, augurs well for the Wigram meeting, and, indeed, the Stuyvesant series, this year a NZ-only event over four rounds. Bernasconi and Allison are the newcomers to NZ and might well have an advantage because they are contesting the Australia-New Zealand Sharp Calculators Formula 5000 test series which will open at Levin next weekend and conclude at Manfeld on December 12. None of the European-based drivers has been here before and the same applies to Goss and Hook. Stewart, Bartlett and McCormack need no introduction to local motor racing fans. They have all won the Australian Gold Star series at one time or another. 22-99-75 RO Australian "Driver of the Year" is 22-year-old Queenslander Bruce Allison who will be running this ex-Kevin Bartlett Lola T332 in the Lady Wigram Trophy, third round in the four-race Peter Stuyvesant series on January 18. His will be one of a number of new faces from Australia and Europe at the South Island's premier international motor racing meeting.