Anderson And Molloy To Race At Wigram

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30939, 21 December 1965, Page 23

Anderson And Molloy To Race At Wigram

The revival of the New Zealand airfield motor-cycle racing championships after a lapse of five years promises to add much interest to the programme for the Lady Wigram Trophy international car and motor-cycle meeting on January 22.

Although entries do not close until tomorrow and there is provision for late entries up to January 8, indications are that the largest number of internationally ranked riders ever to assemble at one meeting in New Zealand will be racing at Wigram.

Already, New Zealand’s multiple world road racing champion, Hugh Anderson, has agreed to race at the meeting on the 125 c.c. works Suzuki which carried him to his fourth world title this year. An actual entry had not been received but “to the best of our knowledge Anderson will be competing,” Mr G. Shepherd, secretary of the Motor Racing Club, which organises the meeting, said yesterday. Anderson has apparently been contracted to ride at the main international car racing meeting in the feature motorcycle events. RECENT RETURN A provisional entry for another world class New Zealand road racer, W. (Ginger) Molloy, has also been received and there is a chance that the former New Zealand representative to the Isle of Man, Arnold Dobbs, will enter as well Molloy and Dobbs returned to New Zealand last week after several years’ racing on the European circuit. The New Zealand 250 c.c., 350 c.c., 500 c.c. and open airfield championships will be at stake during the Wigram meeting. Two 25-mile races will be held. In the first, the 250 c.c. and 350 c.c. titles will be at stake and In the second the 500 c.c. and open championships. Molloy, who has been racing overseas for three years after originally being sent to the Isle of Man as a uember of the New Zealand team, was fourth in th« Italian Grand Prix at Monza t -is

year. He is currently a works rider for the Spanish Bultaco team and has brought two high performance light-weight machines from the factory back to New Zealand with him. One is a water-tooled twincylinder 250 c.c. machine with a six-speed gearbox, which he plans to race in New Zealand junto. events, and the other is a smaller 125 c.c. machine. While overseas, Molloy raced all the world championship meetings in Eastern and Western Europe. He is expected to return in time for the next European racing season. THREE MACHINES Dobbs, had a more difficult task to exist on the European circuits, being a private entrant throughout his two-year stay. For this reason he raced at smaller meetings where the races were short, the fields not so large and the starting money reasonably good. He has brought three machines to New Zealand with him, a 500 c.c. Norton, a 350 c.c. Norton and a 250 c.c. Bultaco. Another prominent New Zealander t<~ return to the Dominion in the last week is the speedway rider, Colin McKee, of Napier. He repr-sen-ted Scotland to several international matches and has brought back three racing machines with him.