Stewart leads Tasman series

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33450, 4 February 1974, Page 30

Stewart leads Tasman series

“The Press” Special Service SYDNEY. Max Stewart led an Australian clean sweep of the fifth round of the Peter Stuyvesant SIOO,OOO motor - racing series at Oran Park, Sydney, yesterday. The 90-lap race was a thriller from start to finish, with Stewart (Lola T 330) taking the chequered flag—for his second successive championship win—by 2.2 sec from J. Walker (Lola T 330), with W. [Brown (Lola T 332). third, ■o.6sec back. J. McCormack (Elfin Repco) was fourth, just half

a second behind Brown, after being forced to relinquish his commanding early lead when he broke a valve rocker. TIGHT FINISH The four cars were separated by a mere 3.3 secs at the finish, after one of the hardest Tasman races for many years. The result gave Stewart. winner of the fourth round at Teretonga, the lead in the series, with three races remaining—at Surfers Paradise, Melbourne and Adelaide. Stewart has 24 points, four ahead of the Briton, P. Gethin, who was fifth yesterday 7 in his Chevron 824, 18.2 sec behind McCormack. Gethin’s Belgian team-mate, T. Pilette, also driving a Chevron 824 was sixth, another o.6sec away. McCormack has 18 points in the championship and Walker 15. McRAE DISQUALIFIED G. Lawrence, the 1970 Tasman champion, was seventh and the best placed New Zealand driver, in his Lola T 332. The first seven cars all finished on the same lap. G. Mcßae completed only two laps before being blackflagged out of the race for not beginning it under starter’s orders. Mcßae dashed into the pits after the warm-up lap with an out-of-balance front tyre. By the time his mechanics had replaced it, the race had started

without Mcßae taking his place on the grid. The luckless Mcßae virtually has no chance now of winning this year’s series, even if he wins all the remaining races. Other New Zealand drivers in the race had little luck. The Gold Star champion, D. Oxton (Begg FMS), was fourth out after 48 laps with a broken valve rocker stud. G. Pedersen (McLaren) also

withdrew on the same lap with mechanical trouble while B. Robertson (Elfin-Repco) was flagged in with a suspected oil leak after 73 laps, but he managed to finish. NEAR RECORD LAP . Watched by a crowd of 20,000, Stewart drove one of the best races of his career, after a collision in practice yesterday with Oxton that necessitated the replacement of the Lola’s near-side front suspension. Driving with clockwork precision, he completed the 90 laps in 61min 22sec, while Walker set the fastest lap, 40 seconds, one second outside F. Matich’s outright, lap record. R. Muir deputised for Matich in the race, but was forced to withdraw after 69 laps when his Repco-Matich A 53 lost fuel pressure.