Kennett shifts gear for change of horsepower

Press, 26 October 1989, Page 42

Kennett shifts gear for change of horsepower

By DAVID MCCARTHY From driving a Shelby Mustang in the cutthroat atmosphere of Trans Am racing in the United States to training a small team of horses at Woodville may seem an unusual role change, but Bob Kennett has adjusted well to it. Kennett, Wellingtonborn, has spent the majority of his 40-odd years based in Seattle, Washington State, where his family emigrated in the 19605. He and his New Zealand wife, Maylene, whose father, Don Oliver, introduced Kennett to horses, moved out to New Zealand in 1986 and, while the move is not necessarily permanent, it has been enjoyable so far.

He has Yankee Zephyr and Macho Comacho based at Riccarton for the next few weeks.

Kennett, originally a “body man (panel beater)” by trade, has shifted from the smell of engine oil to the application of hoof oil quite readily. His horsepower these days might not be the several hundred his Mustang, and an earlier Porsche, produced, but with 12 broodmares, a small racing string and shares in stallions such as Broadway Aly, Sound Reason and Fiesta Star, he is doing quite nicely thank you. Kennett describes himself as “basically a wheeler-dealer.” He sold up a B.M.W. and Subaru dealership in Bellevue, Seattle, and another car dealing operation when he came back to New Zealand.

He got into car racing

back in 1969 with a Porsche which was partially sponsored and in which he attacked the Sports Car Club of America’s National Championship.

He won the West Coast section (comprising Washington, Canada and California) in his first season, winning six of nine races, and immediately turned professional.

He received full sponsorship and changed to the Trans Am series, a circuit which involved huge pressures, huge distances to travel and little spare time.

Porsche were ruled out of Trans Am for two years and Kennett changed to a Mustang.

“I never won a Trans Am race, but got close a couple of times. We were up against big names like Parnelli Jones and Mark Donohue. The cars could reach 200 km/h and there was no quarter given. “Mark Donohue (a champion driver who

later lost his life in Formula One racing) put me over a bank one day with no beg your pardons. But I never suffered serious injuries,” Kennett said. Unlike horse racing, there was little social side to Trans Am racing, which was conducted on tracks such as Daytona and Laguna Seca, California, the scene of Kennett’s worst crash. “You didn’t mix socially. There was a lot at stake and the pressure was intense. One leading driver killed himself in my time and it was just the pressure.” Kennett dropped out of car racing, on his wife’s strong suggestion, in the mid 1970 s and moved into car dealing. For some years before the final shift the family spent three months in New Zealand each year and gradually Kennett became interested in horses and horse racing. He was granted an owner-trainer licence this season.

Kennett has already been successful as a breeder. Yankee Zephyr won last season as a two-year-old, and Danjika, which he sold at Karaka last year to patrons of the Priscott stable, was a recent juvenile winner at Ellerslie. Kennett has a half-sister by Crested Wave entered in Karaka this year. He also bred Macho Camacho from Lexi Luther, a Three Legs mare he bought as a yearling which was injured and has not raced.

He subsequently bought Lexi Luther’s dam, Olea, which goes to Pompeii Court this year, as does Citrilyte, a Battle Waggon mare from Ruelle.

Bob Kennett has had his bad moments in horse racing, just as he did the day the gear lever on his Shelby Mustang came loose in his hand in the National Road Race of Champions at Daytona when the team (driver Kennett, two mechanics, two road staff) were right in contention, and hitting 180 km/h he managed to get it back in). There was a small accident involving Macho Comacho yesterday morning at the track, but hopefully he will be over it by Saturday. Kennett finds the New Zealand training scene, where he has gleaned knowledge largely from watching others at work, as rather more relaxing than the Seattle motoring scene, although he misses the excitement sometimes.

“We may well go back, but if we do I’ll be keeping the horses here,” he said. “We would still be coming out regularly.” Yankee Zephyr and Macho Comacho, both firm trackers, got away to a bad start, striking rain and scratching, from Rangiora, so Kennett, whose motoring interests these days are restricted to watching his son, Brad, at moto-cross and going for the odd sprint in his Chevrolet Corvette, reckons things can only improve.

He knows now that this is one challenge the might of Goodyear, Ford, and a new gearbox cannot answer. But the transition from 600 horsepower to 15 has not been much trouble at all. The drive to succeed is still there for Bob Kennett