Top field for national title

Press, 17 February 1978, Page 6

Top field for national title

The best field of midgetcars to appear at Templeton speedway will line up tomorrow night to fight out the New Zealand championship for 1978.

Nine of the best drivers from Auckland's Western Springs speedway stadium have made the pilgrimage south to take on nine of the top drivers from Templeton. and the field is completed by Alex Rattray, a youngster from Invercargill in his first season of midget competition. Auckland has for many years been known as the home of midget car racing in New Zealand. Christchurch can boast of having only about a dozen or so midgets competing regularly every Saturday night, but in Auckland as many as 30 cars might compete in two classes during one night’s racing.

Another reason for Auckland’s top-dog midget status is the fact that the South Island has produced only one national champion in the 30-odd years the contest has been running. Christchurch’s Edwin Murray won the title out at Templeton in the 196667 season, but since then a succession of North Islanders have carried the crown back to Auckland.

Since the early 19705, the new force in midget racing has been provided by the Volkswagen-pow-ered cars that have dominated the race-tracks of the United States. Gradually a few of these highperformance vehicles have filtered into the country, and Auckland enjoys a huge monopoly on the racers. This season Templeton has had the first Volkswagen in the South Island. Alan Palmer has had patchv success in the car to date, but other drivers have already expressed interest in the machine.

Five of the Aucklanders coming down for the contest will be equipped with the V-Dub racers, and a lot of the fireworks can be confidently expected to come from them. Heading the very impressive list is the current champion, Ted Tracey, and he will be keen to retain the

title he won last year on his home track.

Tracey is only in his early twenties and is highly regarded in the north. He has been racing for only three seasons, and his rise through the ranks of the aggressive Auckland drivers has been hailed by several Christchurch competitors as “outstanding.” Tracey is currently running second in the race for two trophies at stake for midgets at Western Springs. He and Kerry Morris are tied for second spot in the Air New Zealand trophy, and the Butterworth brothers, Max and Barry, are equal with him, behind Keith Watson, in the quest for the Broadlands Finance prize. Both trophies are awarded to the driver who amasses the most points in the class over the season, and it says much for Tracey’s consistency that he is so handily placed in both of the contests. But the driver who is regarded by many to be the best in the country is Barry “Buttercrunch” Butterworth. Fans of speedway in Christchurch will nurture many fond memories of Butterworth from his numerous visits to Templeton, the most recent being a few weeks ago when he appeared in an international series of races with two visiting Americans and an Australian.

Butterworth began his racing career when he was only 16, competing initially in the three-quarter midget class. In 1960, however, he was given the opportunity to purchase a VB-60 midget from the legendary Roly Carruthers, and he raced his with success for two years.

He stepped up to an Of-fenhauser-powered car in 1964, and then disappeared across the Tasman to Australia where he raced very successfully for several seasons. He returned home to Auckland in the late 19605, and began racing a Chevy-2, then he raced an Offenhauser for a number of years before purchasing his current VW racer. He comes south to Templeton with impressive

credentials, but his brother. Max, will not be shut out of the competition. Max Butterworth, too, has had extensive racing in Australia with reasonable success, and he will be a top contender tomorrow night. He will be running a Mazda-powered car in the championships, a similar racer to Christchurch’s Arthur Matthews. Another Auckland driver who must be among the more favoured entrants is Keith Watson. He is the current leader in a pair of season-long competitions at the Springs, and is one of the more consistent performers up there. Like Barry Butterworth, he will be running a Volkswagen. Other North Island entrants to be in the hunt for the title include Pat Johnson in the CBA Volkswagen, who said recently that he had spent $25,000 on the car already this season: Kerry Morris in another V-Dub, who is a top performer at Western Springs; and John Godfrey, who is bringing south an exotic Ford-Pinto-powered midget. All three competitors may surprise tomorrow, as might Dave Jolly in his Benson-Sesco and Toby

Smith, who will be running a Chevy-2. Heading the list of Southern aspirants to the national title is the most consistent and hard-work-ing driver at Templeton, Kevin Proctor. His Family Cars Sesco has been "a front-runner at Templeton throughout the season, and he took the South Island midget-car championship in Invercargill last month. Proctor has been racing midgets for the past four seasons, and while he does not have the experience of some of the older Auckland drivers, his natural ability and dexterity behind the wheel makes him a top title prospect. Alan Palmer is something of an unknown quality. If his Volkswagen, the first resident South Island V-Dub, is running at full strength, then he must be another driver with an excellent chance. But to iron out all the bugs that go with a new car is not a task that can be performed overnight, and this has prevented the talented Palmer from displaying his true worth since the car was first raced some weeks ago. He is in his eighth season of com-

petitive racing, five of which were spent in the TQ class. Mark Williams has a very similar racing history to that of Alan Palmer. He, too, served a five-year “apprenticeship” in the three-quarter midgets before stepping up into the bigger class, and the transition has been quite successful. He has been running the NZIG Chevy-2 into a lot of first placings this season, and he had the ability to shatter any complacency of the North Islanders on the night. Any midget-car championship would be incomplete without the indomitable Gordon “Rocky” Roxburgh. Revered in some quarters, reviled in Roxburgh, nevertheless, remains one of the grand old men of Christchurch speedway. His 21year racing career has been periodically punctuated by controversy, and he is without a doubt regarded by many as the “bad boy” of Templeton. But a more dedicated competitor would be hard to find, and a harder driver might not even exist. He blew up his Datsun driven racer at the South Island championships recently, but the car was back on the track the next Saturday night. Together with Proctor, Roxburgh will be the South

Islander the Aucklanders may fear the most. To be the top driver in the South Island is no mean feat. Jack Bryan went down to Invercargill last month to defend his title, but an accident which badly bent the car in the second heat put paid to his chances. Bryan has been unlucky throughout the season, but *here is no denying his undoubted ability behind the wheel of his Chevy-2 midget. Last week, for example, he had the misfortune to melt a piston but he and Rod “Feet” Robinson have worked on it throughout this week to prepare it for tomorrow night. He is another driver who may make the Aucklanders look up. ■■■■■■■■■l