Thrilling racing at Bay Park meeting

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32407, 21 September 1970, Page 16

Thrilling racing at Bay Park meeting

(N.Z. Press Association) TAU RAN GA. In a day of mishaps and mistakes last year’s winners of the national touring car and saloon car championships lost their grip on the series at a thrilling motor racing meeting at Bay Park, Mount Maunganui, yesterday. P. Fahey (Auckland) led from start to finish In his Ford Escort to take the premier event—the 16-lap Bank of New South Wales saloon car championship—and the lead in the championship standings. Fahey drove a faultless race and crossed the line 15 seconds ahead of last year’s co-winner, R. Cqppins (Gisbonie) in a Chevrolet Camaro. The hard-luck story of the year must surely be that of R. Anderson in the 1001 to 4200 c.c. national touring car championship event. Last year’s winner and the hot favourite for this race, he was forced to withdraw when his car lost the sump lug

while he was waiting on the grid for the race to start. And so J. Richards (Auckland) drove an unchallenged race to win comfortably from M. Pennington (New Plymouth). R. Cook (Auckland) drove a good race to bring his Austin Cooper S into third place. In the smaller touring car event for cars under 1000 c.c. R. Collingwood (Auckland) drove his Morris Cooper S superbly to open up a lead on the rest of the field and maintain it until the end. N. Bailey (Auckland) took second after a steady drive in his Morris B.L.M.C. but M. Tait (Hamilton) had to fight with last year’s champion, B. Phillips (Auckland) until Phillips’s Austin Cooper developed mechanical problems. Tait took third place in his Hillman Imp. The most thrilling of all the races was the event for standard production cars of unlimited capacity. In this the large crowd saw the Bay Park record-holder, J. Palmer (Hamilton), in a Holden Monaro lose to S. Black (Morrinsville) in a Ford Falcon GTHO. The two raced together for the full 10 laps and at one stage appeared to be locked together for several seconds while going through a tight bend. It was a grandstand finish and the crowd rose to its feet and applauded loudly as Black took the race only feet ahead of Palmer. During the race Palmer lowered his record for the circuit of 75 seconds by a full second. The best time Black could manage was 74.25ec.