J. Walker

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33435, 17 January 1974, Page 10

J. Walker

Johnnie Walker is Aus« tralia’s “dark horse” for the Stuyvesant $lOO,OOO series. He could be the surprise of the series in his Repco-engined Lola T 330, which he brought back from his first tilt at the rich United States Formula 5000 championship last year. He nearly won the Australian drivers’ championship, in spite of missing out on the opening round when the Lola failed to arrive in time. Walker was runner-up to John McCormack, who beat him by a mere three points. Walker, 28, from Ade-

laide, is virtually unknown in New Zealand. He has never raced here and could not secure a contract for the previous series. But two fourth places and a fifth in the Australian races soon made the promoters take notice. Walker has been knocking at the door of major success in Australia for some time. He started racing in an old model Holden when he was only 17. He progressed to a self built

Ford Consul-engined sports car, followed by an MGA, an Elfin Catalina sports and then his first real racing car, an Elfin Mono. This soon gave way to two of the more advanced Elfin 600 Formula 2 cars, in which he won the Victorian, South Australian and West Australian road racing championships, a big 1| litre racing car series in Melbourne and second places in the Sing- _ apore and Kuala Lumpur

GP’s, besides being eighth outright and third in his class in the Japanese GP. He broke into Formula 5000 racing in 1972, in an Elfin-Repco. Frank Matich took Walker under his wing later that year, getting him into a Repco-Mat-ich and generally teaching him some of the finer points of Formula 5000 racing. Walker proved an adept pupil, and set out for the United States last year. He was fourth outright in his first start there. Other placings in the three other races he contested enabled him to cover the expenses of the trip.