Chris Amon Festival

[HandyNZL 1]

Well something is amuck in the Cooper clutch, so we're down to one car for this weekend, being the Lola Formula Ford...day started off bleak and just got bleaker....aka it started to rain. The rain being the remnants of the storms etc that lashed Queensland and NSW the last few weeks. Forecast for tomorrow is thunderstorms, so, cool....not.

Racing has been highly competitive in the FFord class (as usual), and the old cars (60's and 70's cars) have been mixing it really well with the new cars (the 80's cars). Bill Stone has been making his little 1968/9 Lotus hum along and is getting to be the fastest car on track. For those of you whom don't know who Bill Stone is, he was one of the original March mechanics/welders/designers....correct that...he was THE original. He also had quite an involvement in the ATS Formula One team, and still wears his ATS adorned overalls to this day.

Kenny Smith is still going strong at 60 million years old (give or take), and has been doing triple duty...F5000's (he's number 4 in the pics), FFords (number 644) and also racing in Super Historics (which is a fairly open class for all 1990's cars like the RALTS and Swifts of the old Formula Pacific/Atlantic days, amongst a few other classes). The F5000's second race was completed in pouring rain, and even though only a mere handful could be called anything other than enthusiasts, they were all giving it death.

Great to see Chirs Amon's F1 car out at the festival...it's racing in the F5000's, even though it only has a 3-litre engine. It's a one of a kind car, and if any of you know of it's history, it very nearly killed Amon three times....a great story regaling it's history is in the Festival programme, of which I will transcribe as it is a fun read. I plan on taking some pits shots of it, as well as Amon's Ferrari Dino F1 car - two cars that deserve a little more than just a few snappies off the track.

One sad sight today was one of the few McLaren M4's left in the world being towed in off the track with its nose all crumpled up....at least it's just a bit of fibreglass and paint, aye?

And just so we can all feel human...on a dry track, the one and only Steve Millen found a way to put his car into the tyre barrier on his own, during a demonstration lap.....

And tomorrow I may have to share a sandwich with Adrian Reynard...afterall his car is next to ours, and it would only be polite

Flickr pic set: http://www.flickr.co...N07/5377512450/

[Caesar 0]

who is chris amon?

[HandyNZL 1]

I hope that is a serious question and not you being an arsewipe...because the joke is lame, not to mention dumb. And if you really don't know, perhaps you should research him (it really is quite easy with the internet and everything), or maybe even read a book about him.

[Caesar 0]

foreigner hater!

[HandyNZL 1]

How you get that, I have no idea. Perhaps because you have no intelligent riposte to my comment?

[Caesar 0]

How you get that, I have no idea. Perhaps because you have no intelligent riposte to my comment?

it was easier to write it than to look on internet who is chris amon.

don't take it to your heart, they let every kind of person use internet today.

[HandyNZL 1]

So in the time it took you to type "who is Chris Amon?" and then post a reply about "foreigner hating", you could have typed that into Google and found out. Wikipedia would have been another option. Either way you had to type "who is Chris Amon" be it here or on Google, then, even had I simply replied, you would still have had to read my reply, which would most likely have been nearly as long as that on Wikipedia, so at the end of the day, you would have spent less time in doing your own research, and actually learning about Formula One, than you have posting inane comments because you think it is somehow funny? (and still not found out who he is).

So which option do you think may have been easier now?

[monza gorilla 1]

Nice piccies Craig. I'm just a little jealous. Is the great man himeself there? I'd sooner have a sandwich with him than Adrian.

[HandyNZL 1]

Yes, Chris Amon is there....dragged off the farm, kicking and squealing then belted into the AF101 He was at last years Bruce McLaren festival too, and he drove some demo laps in a Ferrari, but this year he is doing laps in the AF101, much to his life insurers protests, plus a few laps in the Dino F1. He is also supposed to be doing laps in a BRM F1 car, and perhaps a Talon F5000...all cars he drove in the day. Of course, last years event was decidedly tangelo orange, but this year is very Maranello red....Ferrari road cars everywhere....though there is a very nice restored Le Man Ford GT40 I am going to have a nosey at today.

Oh, and he doesn't get to have a sandwich with me....that's his punishment for buying a Keenan feed out wagon instead of a Seko mixer from the company I worked for. Hope his cow's milk production dropped

Weather today is cats with a smattering of dogs....not looking nice at all. Forecast for next weekend is bright sunshiney weather.

Malcolm Oastler is here too, with Reynard. They are taking it in turns to drive Bill Stone's Mallock U2 sports car. Bill Stone and Reynard set up Sabre Motorsports back in the day...which became Reynard. I had never pegged Reynard for someone to dress in denim shorts and a blue check shirt as if he'd just come in from the milking shed...but there you have him...dressed in exactly that! Of course, you will know that Malcolm Oastler was designer for Jaguar F1, BAR etc etc...

Haven't seen Damon Hill anywhere in the pits yet...he is supposed to be coming to the event, though not sure if it's this weekend or next.

Well, thats enough name dropping for now...there is a pile around my feet, and it's rather messy.....I'm off to get drenched for ten hours...

[HandyNZL 1]

Complete rain-out today. The run off area on one corner was a swimming pool, and a nice river was flowing down the dipper....a day for the ducks...

[Insider 0]

it was easier to write it than to look on internet who is chris amon.

don't take it to your heart, they let every kind of person use internet today.

Where is Brutus when you need him.............

[Insider 0]

Well something is amuck in the Cooper clutch, so we're down to one car for this weekend, being the Lola Formula Ford...day started off bleak and just got bleaker....aka it started to rain. The rain being the remnants of the storms etc that lashed Queensland and NSW the last few weeks. Forecast for tomorrow is thunderstorms, so, cool....not.

Racing has been highly competitive in the FFord class (as usual), and the old cars (60's and 70's cars) have been mixing it really well with the new cars (the 80's cars). Bill Stone has been making his little 1968/9 Lotus hum along and is getting to be the fastest car on track. For those of you whom don't know who Bill Stone is, he was one of the original March mechanics/welders/designers....correct that...he was THE original. He also had quite an involvement in the ATS Formula One team, and still wears his ATS adorned overalls to this day.

Kenny Smith is still going strong at 60 million years old (give or take), and has been doing triple duty...F5000's (he's number 4 in the pics), FFords (number 644) and also racing in Super Historics (which is a fairly open class for all 1990's cars like the RALTS and Swifts of the old Formula Pacific/Atlantic days, amongst a few other classes). The F5000's second race was completed in pouring rain, and even though only a mere handful could be called anything other than enthusiasts, they were all giving it death.

Great to see Chirs Amon's F1 car out at the festival...it's racing in the F5000's, even though it only has a 3-litre engine. It's a one of a kind car, and if any of you know of it's history, it very nearly killed Amon three times....a great story regaling it's history is in the Festival programme, of which I will transcribe as it is a fun read. I plan on taking some pits shots of it, as well as Amon's Ferrari Dino F1 car - two cars that deserve a little more than just a few snappies off the track.

One sad sight today was one of the few McLaren M4's left in the world being towed in off the track with its nose all crumpled up....at least it's just a bit of fibreglass and paint, aye?

And just so we can all feel human...on a dry track, the one and only Steve Millen found a way to put his car into the tyre barrier on his own, during a demonstration lap.....

And tomorrow I may have to share a sandwich with Adrian Reynard...afterall his car is next to ours, and it would only be polite

Flickr pic set: http://www.flickr.co...N07/5377512450/

Looks like a gas, Craig. I'm jealous

[HandyNZL 1]

Not much gas used today...just 15-odd litres of 91-unleaded driving to and from the track in the rain (and having mondo fun aqua-planing)...no avgas used at all today

[Insider 0]

Not much gas used today...just 15-odd litres of 91-unleaded driving to and from the track in the rain (and having mondo fun aqua-planing)...no avgas used at all today

Lovely - not!

[HandyNZL 1]

First weekend photography can be found here: http://groundsky.co.nz/index.php?Action=EVV&EventCode=1101

[HandyNZL 1]

Formula 5000 at the Festival....turn up the speakers....

[HandyNZL 1]

Amon hasn't lost any of his speed...he did a set of flyers in the Ferrari Dino F1 car, and was fair honking, even a bit of drift....a far cry change from his tractor he drives these days.

And whoever was doing the demo's in the AF101 at the same time......faaaaaarrrckkkk....really must find out who he was, because he was lapping quicker than the quickest F5000's...

Who picked out the AF101 in the video? Just use your ears....

[BradSpeedMan 6]

Where is Brutus when you need him.............

:lol:

[BradSpeedMan 6]

it was easier to write it than to look on internet who is chris amon.

don't take it to your heart, they let every kind of person use internet today.

if you have'nt googled it yet... herewith Wikipedia..."Christopher Arthur Amon MBE (born 20 July 1943 in Bulls, New Zealand) is a former motor racing driver. He was active in Formula One - racing in the 1960s and 1970s - and is widely regarded to be one of the best F1 drivers never to win a championship Grand Prix. His reputation for bad luck was such that fellow driver Mario Andretti once joked that "if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying" ...and this is free of charge Caesar

The bold part, reminds me of Kimi