Hi all, been lurking for a while, soaking up the knowledge and not replying because I had nothing of value to add.... Left NZ back in the early '80's, lived in England, Sth Africa, Australia (twice) and have been here in the US since '94. I work in the motor racing industry and have done all of my working life. Currently Crew Chief at Highcroft Racing in the ALMS Series. I lived in Zionsville, Indiana and have two daughters in college, (Purdue and I.U.), keeping me very poor. Now live in Candlewood Isle, CT. In a past life I have owned 3 Model A's, a 34 five window coupe, a '55 Chevy, a '57 Chevy and currently have a lowered '64 GMC pickup, 350/350. This is it before it was lowered and the decals removed..... Want to chop the roof next and get rid of those ugly wheels, time for some WW's. I have to do things on a restricted budget, (so what's new...), so although I have plenty of ideas they just have to wait. I am in the the process of clearing my debts to make way for a project i have had in mind for several years now. I also collect guns and like to shoot. Reluctantly sold my boat last year as my work schedule meant it sat in the garage most of the time. Fortunately I have replaced it with this... A 21' Schiada, 511", twin turboed, nitrous injected v-drive with an Art Carr reverse pattern valve body 3 speed trans. GPS'd at 115mph... Anyway, enough about me, on with the show...
Welcome aboard, where in NZ are/were you from ? Looks like you are leading an interesting life, what team are you working for ? Boat looks like it was a handfull there are a bunch of us on here if you ever need a reminder of home.
Thanks. I know I can always rely on a KIWI or two to turn up wherever I am . Currently a Crew Chief for PKV Racing, have been around several of the "greats" over the past many years. I know Scotty Dixon well and worked with him for a while. The boat is a '76 Sanger Hydro. It had a 468" BB, twin 660's on a tunnel ram, etc, etc. Blew that up and built a 496" BB Chev, blown and injected on alcohol. Yep, it was fun to drive, it is now in Florida powered by a blown Hemi. I do like to keep up with trends back in the homeland, I was heavily involved in rodding back in the day. I'm from ChCh and have great memories of the rod runs and the night drags out on the country roads complete with battery powered tree. Love to hear from any of you.
Seems like we both have the same days off then. Look out for my pickup, (above), driving past your shop each day... Come on over and say hey at the weekend.
I thought I recognized that pickup! How are you doing Steve? I guess it's been since Long Beach that we had beers...we'll have to do it again soon. Your old CGR buddy. Mike O'Gara
Jesus, is everyone in racing on here????? Hey Mike, yep, beers are in order! How about we do a get together sometime next week, we load the plane for Australia around the 11th/12th of Oct. so we have plenty of time. Rat L. Can, you should join us.
Last thing I need is you rubing my face in the Gold Coast Indy deal, my brother and a couple of mates (bastards !!!) are going over this year, great event and a cool loaction too, we went over about 5 years ago and had a blast......this year too poor Scotty Dixon went to my old High school, he sure has done well for himself, a long way from ma and pa borrowing against the family home to keep him racing way back.... nice to see him win at Watkins Glenn shame the local press don't pick up on the historical significance as a kiwi winning there. Still lots of rodding down Christchurch way, went down to Craig Stares show this year for the second time , he puts on a good weekend, I think they also have the per 49 nats there this summer over consecutive weekends.
Yep, a great event for sure, gets bigger each year. We were out with Scotts mum a couple of weeks ago, she is still a riot. I'm about to leave for the Elkhart Lake race and will be back Monday, if I remember I'll scan a couple of old photos of Craigs cars back when we used to hang out. I remember him doing an almighty burnout in my driveway with his '34 one night, smokes the place out. He also had an A40 that was super trick. His parents owned our local bookstore back then.
Welcome Burbanite! I'm a Ch-Ch expat too. Went to Ch-Ch Boys High, and founded Pegasus club back in '67.
Thanks for the welcome. I still, after all these years, marvel at how Kiwi's manage to come out of the woodwork wherever I am. I read that the population is now around four to four and a half million people, I think that another fifty million must not have been counted.... Boys High huh? Didn't we beat you at Rugby? I played for Burnside... I remember some of the Pegasus guys, one of them tried to beat me up one night for bragging about my '34 coupe, I think he was jealous and my girlfriend had to drag me out before I was scarred for life. I think alcohol may have been involved Got my own back at (can't remember the name of the pub), big old western style bar brawl that ended up with someone chasing me around the parking lot trying to run me over with their car. Oh, the joys of youth. Good to see you getting back in, I'm doing the same thing myself after a long hiatus. Have not seen much from over your way for years but will check it out. Funny thing is, I was just organising some of my stuff this week and came across a great find. I still have every copy of the old NZ Hot Rod Magazine that I ever had. The first one I got was in 1971 and I had a subscription well into the 80's that were sent to my parents home for years after I left. Still haven't opened most of them and the ones I did quickly skim through are right on with what this particular site is all about. Treasures for sure, you should see some of the articles.. I even have the LP they put out, Sounds Of The Drags New Zealand, Christ knows what possessed me to buy a vinyl recording of dragsters but I used to listen to it. Thank God for DVDs.
Will send some stuff over with the Guys to Indy if you like, some local mags n crap if you like. Sounds like you had quite the time back in CHC.
55olds88 that is so cool of you to offer, don't want to put anyone to any trouble as it is hard to get to us during race weekend, I am hoping to get over to NZ before too long so maybe I can organise it to be somewhere during an event. Yes, I had quite the time........still do as a matter of fact. Life is definitely more than half over for me and I don't want to waste a minute of it... In my line of work I have every opportunity known to man. As an update here is a pic of my current driver from this morning. Raining like a mofo as you can see.
Hi Steve I am trying to place your 34 coupe, did a lot of rod run stuff in Ch Ch in the 70's. Check out the latest NZHRM there a flash back to the 76 Rod Benders Nats. Welcome aboard.
Hi there burbanite, sounds like you have a pretty exciting way to earn a living over there! If you (or anybody else) want to check out some of the local NZ sceene, you can download the screensaver I put together with a bunch of pics I took at the Beach Hop - it's not exactly HAMB matarial, but there's a little bit of everything in there. It's free to download, and there's no spyware or crap on board, and it's 100% virus free. http://www.barracuda.co.nz/photodump/beachhop06.exe Cheers, Justin
The damn thing didn't get the opportunity to leave the garage before I moved overseas. It was sold to a Wellingtonian named Chris ???? Craig Stare made the dropped tube front axle and four bar, it had a Chevy 10 bolt posi rear with AP5 leaf springs, Falcon steering box, a Muncie 4 speed, 350 4 bolt main engine, Hunter bucket seats and American Racing daisy pattern wheels. The body was an unchopped 5 window coupe on 34 rails with an 'A' front crossmember. I got the car/frame from Timaru. Yes, I consider myself fortunate to have been able to do what I have done since leaving NZ, I have lived a very good life so far and it doesn't look like ending any time soon.... Thanks for the screensaver, some interesting pics there and a great insight into some of the current trends in NZ.
Let me know, I can either send some stuff over easly enough more a matter of them getting it to you or you from them, or just drop us a line when you are next headed this way, I work at the airport and live pretty close. Not too sure about the pink race car but hey its all about where they cross the line right ?
Wow wadda ya know stumbled across this thread, looks like we got 1/2 of NZ on the HAMB now-welcome Justin and Bevan-Ya newbies
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