Crawford favoured in Formula Fords

Press, 30 September 1983, Page 28

Crawford favoured in Formula Fords

Sunday’s Ruapuna meeting will see the first round of the South Island Formula Ford series and a good field of speedy single-seaters will take to the track.

John Crawford, last season’s winner, has a new car this season, the exSchollum Van Dieman, and the Christchurch driver will be keen to get in some practice for the national champinship and also retain his South Island title. Crawford’s Valour has gone to Phillip Butcher, who will pilot it in the S.I. series.

Two Timaru drivers, Lyn Johnson and Ron Hanson, are building a new Ford and it should be ready for Sunday’s first meeting. Hanson,

who has had a little Formula Ford experience as well as some racing in a

pre-65 Cortina, will probably do the S.I. series in the car, while Johnson will tackle the national cham-

pionship in it. Peter McEwan has improved his GLH in a bid to go faster and a number of other drivers from last season are also back, including Kevin Hill (Hustler), Steven Foster (Royale), Wayne Leslie (GLH), and Brian Blackmore (Johnston). Several new drivers will add interest. These include a former North Islander, Darryl Roots (ex-Brownsey Titan), former kart driver Bruce Gibbs (Johnston), former rally driver Alan

Jones (Titan) and former pre-65 driver Graeme Vaughan (Lyon).

Alan Airey, of Dunedin, will campaign a Hawke and young Andrew McElrea, of Ashburton, will drive Larry

Mulholland’s new Swift LM2 when it is finished. The S.I. series will be run over eight meetings — three at Ruapuna, four at Levels and one at Wigram — and each meeting will see one eight-lap race, plus two nonpoints handicap races for Fords, and Formula Pacifies. It seems that Tony Batchelor (Christchurch, March), will be the only Formula Pacific driver at Sunday’s Ruapuna meeting, as Ross Cameron, of Dunedin, has not entered.