Davy Jones races away from N.Z.’s ‘old men’
By
PETER GREENSLADE
The years are beginning to tell for New Zealand’s leading racing drivers. The young American Davy Jones, aged 19, following up on his successful showing in the New Zealand Grand Prix about a week ago, took out rounds five and six in the Just Juice Formula pacific international motor racing series at the Manfeild circuit, Feilding, on Saturday.
His first win was not too convincing, for he finished only I.Bsecs ahead of Aucklander David Oxton, but in the second race he cleared out to beat Oxton by 11.065. Each race was over 27 laps of the 3.03 km circuit, a distance of 81.81 km. In the normal course of events, another Aucklander, Ken Smith, runs Oxton pretty close and beats him on occasions, but the best he could do on Saturday was to notch a fourth and a fifth. In the first race the youthful Paul Radisich, also of Auckland, finished third ahead of Smith and in the second the Australian Andrew Miedecke trailed his Ralt Australia teammate, Radisich, home to finish fourth ahead of Smith. After being narrowly beaten by Jones in the first race, Oxton admitted that the last 20 years of hard living were beginning to catch up. Having been more soundly beaten in the second race, he offered no excuses, saying that the boy from Syracuse had been too fast for him on the day. Oxton has a little more than 20 years to wait before he can collect national superannuation and Smith a little less. That is assuming, of course, that the hand-out will still be around. Smith suffers more than twinges of pain from arthritis in an elbow and
when it was announced on the public address system that he had been suffering during the first race, a wellmeaning woman, who believes she can effect cures by laying on hands, detached herself from the large band of spectators at Manfeild and offered the diminutive Aucklander her help. Unfortunately, her ministrations did nothing for Smith in the second race. This race meeting once again underlined the superiority of the Ralt racing car. In each race RT4 versions filled the first five places, their complete domination being upset by Brett Riley, a New Zealander who spends his time racing Formula 3 cars in Britain these days. Riley drove a Dart 83M, a car that has not been competitive in this series and, under the circumstances, Riley’s showing was most creditable. The other Dart, to have been driven by Christ-church-born Dave McMillan, who races professionally in the United States, was scratched because McMillan experienced handling problems with it during the qualifying sessions and it was found that the chassis of the car was virtually disintegrating under the stresses imposed on it. Seventh place in each race was taken by Englishman lan Flux, who was
unable to foot it with the men in front, but performed rather better than the remainder of the field, most of whom had come to the starting grids with little more than runners’ chances.
ing Oxton, who could get near him.
In fact, it could have been that Jones would have set a new lap record if there had been a real challenger, but his race average of 160.047km/h, although better than his first race average, was no indicator of his best lap time of 65.175, 1.32 s slower than the record set by the Brazilian Roberto Moreno in a Ralt RT4 in 1982.
In that regard, the possible exception was another young American, Justin Revene, who had been eighth quickest in the qualifying trials. However, he failed to come to terms with the testing Manfeild circuit and his better result was an eighth place behind Flux in the second race. In the first he spun off the circuit on two occasions and finished tenth.
Jones, who missed the two opening rounds at Baypark, Mount Maunganui, on January 2, has now become a contender in the Just Juice series, for he has scored 32 points from four rounds.
In the first race Jones got an exceptionally good start and drew out a couple of car-lengths within a lap. Oxton hung on, driving very smoothly, but until light rain fell it appeared that Jones had the situation very much in hand.
Christchurch was not dis--1 graced in the supporting races. Young Mark Rutherford, who has been out of racing for a couple of seasons, mixed with such Shellsport Championship saloon stars as Roy Harrington and Tony Marsh, taking a second and a third in desperate wheel-to-wheel races in which no quarter was given. The two Formula Ford Championship races clearly showed that John Crawford has better qualifications than most in the category, for he took an excellent first place and a second in North Island-dominated fields that included some extremely brave and competent drivers.
With the onset of rain, Oxton, who knows Manfeild well, posed a very real threat, for Jones tended to brake earlier for the corners. Oxton gathered him in, but he was unable to find a way round the American. Radisich, his Ralt suffering from an inoperative clutch, drove a good race to beat Smith, who always had the measure of Miedecke. In the second race Jones simply hit the front from the start and there was not a man on the circuit, includ-
Log in