Motorsport: Amon back in the driver's seat

Grand Prix and Sports Car Legend Chris Amon the Amon F101 at the Hampton Downs NZ Festival of Motor Racing. Photo / Herald on Sunay

Following last year's successful New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing honouring Bruce McLaren, the organisers are serving up another two weekends of motorsport heaven beginning today.

The Hampton Downs Motorsport Park has an impressive line-up of cars and drivers to celebrate one of New Zealand's most successful race car drivers, Chris Amon. It's shaping up to be the best gathering of cars raced by Amon, and the man himself will be there on both weekends.

He will actually demonstrate several priceless cars he raced, or raced against, in decades gone by. These include the iconic Maserati 250F, the Ferrari 246T and Formula One and Formula 5000 machinery. An ex-F1 March driven by Amon will also be on display, which has been shipped over from the UK after spending quarter of a century on display on the wall at the Donnington Park Race Car collection.

"It's all got a bit hectic lately and I'm not sure if it's all going to work or not so I've just decided to go with the flow," said Amon.

"It all came as a bit of a surprise that the festival is named after me and at a certain point I was thinking it might be better if they do these things after you die," chuckled Amon.

The former works Ferrari driver went on to say, "I'm pleased the two weekends were for a worthy cause in that some of the proceeds go to the Bruce McLaren Trust."

Amon will also be reunited with his AF101, the car he and a small team built and raced in Formula One in 1974.

There is a huge entry of cars from abroad, with many coming from the US, UK and Europe to honour a driver widely regarded as the best to have never won an F1 Grand Prix. However, Amon was nearly untouchable in sports cars, winning classics like the Le Mans 24Hour, the Daytona 24Hour and the 1000km Monza.

Of all the cars on view over the weekend that Amon drove, it's the 1968 Ferrari F1 car he likes the best. "The Ferrari was great. Chassis-wise it was good but the engine was a little short on horsepower.

"With a modicum of luck I could have won the championship [F1] in 1968. I had pole three or four times and led a number of races. Instead I finished about 10th as the thing kept stopping," said Amon.

An added attraction over the weekend is the MSC F5000 Tasman Cup Revival series that launches back into action and defending champion Ken Smith holds an early points lead after dominating the opening round in Christchurch last October.

Smith won the Lady Wigram Trophy race for a record-equalling fourth time at the Christchurch meeting and heads to the first of two MSC F5000 Tasman Cup Revival series rounds this weekend with a 14-point lead over Tony Richards with last season's runner-up Steve Ross a further 12 points back.

Eleven classes will race this weekend. A category for 1980s saloons and GTs has been added with several 1980s Group A cars confirmed. Classic racing motorcycles will also compete over the first weekend, with the ever-popular muscle cars replacing them the following weekend.

"Bikes will attract special interest on the first weekend for people who follow classic pre-1963 bikes and who want to enjoy racing as it was in the 1950s early 60s when motorcycles were always part of a combined cars and bikes race programme," said festival organiser Jim Barclay.

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