Mother plays part in son’s racing

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33128, 19 January 1973, Page 5

Mother plays part in son’s racing

Like most mothers, Mrs Mary Moore is happy to have her son, the American motor racing driver, S. A. Posey, “doing what he really wants to do in life, and doing it really well.”

MRS MOORE Mrs Moore, and her husband, who is a surgeon in Connecticut, are in Christchurch to see Posey race in the Lady Wigram Trophy at Wigram on Saturday. She is a loyal circuit follower, and finds her son’s career makes a good excuse for travelling. “My husband and I have alwavs wanted to come to Australia and New Zealand and when we heard he was racing here I told him to book us a room too.” she said yesterday.

COFFEE, SOUP-MAKER She is enjoying the Tasman series, but she likes the 24hour events best. “I can really do something,” she said, “because they need someone to make the coffee, tea. and the soup.” (Posey has been the first American to finish at Le Mans for four consecutive years.) Of course, she said, there were times when she worried. When Posey is driving she stays in the pits “so that I can get an idea of what’s going on.”

Had she tried to dissuade her son from his ambition to become a motor racing driver? “I certainly did.” she said, “but it didn’t make any difference.”

In a way, Mrs Moore was largely responsible for his decision. “He was just about 15 when he got his first really good look at racing and decided that was for him,” she said. FINANCIAL INTEREST That was at Lime Rock, a circuit just five miles from :

their home. Because it was a local business Mrs Moore decided to support the venture and bought stock. “Because I was a stock holder we got to the best spots on the track. It was just fascinating to watch. Some of the drivers were just beautiful, and some didn’t know what they were doing. That’s when we really got the bug.” Posey got his start on the. track in a go-kart about a year later. He bought his own car — “and he was pretty noor after that” — but had to be content with practice laps until he could obtain a licence to race, at 21.

Now. aged 28, he began professional racing in 1967. and had a successful year in 1972. A blue-eyed blonde with an out-going personality, he has his share of the playboy image of the glamour sport — an image he has been heard to say he is quite pleased to leave behind while in New Zealand.

HERO IMAGE His mother is unperturbed at the image-making. “Sure, he has the playboy image, but if the fans knew how hard he works they would soon give that up,” she said. “It’s the hero thing, I guess, that comes in any sport.”

Mrs Moore does not believe the technical advances that have occurred in motor racing have stripped it of its mystique. Yesterday she recalled fondly that first race Sam Posey saw at Lime Rock. “Some of the older men were racing then,” she said, "roaring round with their scarves blowing in the wind. “The spirit is still there, it’s just the machinery that’s changed.” she said. Mrs Moore says that most of the glamour of the motoring racing world is superficial, but thinks there is no harm in providing a little excitement. “They are a marvellous group of people—-

thoroughly nice, very fair, very determined, and with, more imagination than most groups I’ve met.” DESIGNER, TOO Although Mrs Moore thinks her son will go on racing for several years, he has qualifications for a second, if somewhat different, career. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he designs l furniture and makes time to paint about 12 canvasses a I year. In his luggage at present are the plans he is drawing for his family’s new home in ithe Hawaiian Islands. Dr and Mrs Moore are building a shouse on Maui, in a settlement of six.

“As we get older I think Connecticut will get colder, so we’ll probably be spending more and more of our time there,” she said. Dr and Mrs Moore will see two of the Tasman series races in Australia, and then return home.