(L Hemer)
Lynton Hemer’s great shot catches the Frank Matich McLaren M10A Chev in the braking area before Creek Corner during practice for the Warwick Farm 100 on February 15, 1970.
Love the ABC TV outside broadcast van and flaggies and other officials cars sprinkled amongst the trees.
The 1970 Tasman was an interesting one in that the 2.5 Tasman cars which were on the way out (sadly) ended up having, just, the pace and the reliability to lift the Tasman Cup one last time over F5000, which was on the way in. Graeme Lawrence took the title with one win in the Ferrari Dino 246T Chris Amon raced to victory the year before, Matich was second in the points score with two wins.
(R Thorncraft)
The Matich crew first raced their M10A in September 1969 and progressively modified the car in many respects to the new M10B specifications- Hewland DG300 gearbox instead of LG600 etcetera, see this epic on Matich here; Frank Matich: Matich F5000 Cars etcetera… | primotipo…
Frank’s car was the quickest of the series, he won the NZ GP at Pukekohe and at Wigram. Only a splash and dash stop for fuel at Surfers gifted Graham McRae that win and engine problems at the Sandown final round- having started from pole – spoiled his Tasman, Niel Allen’s new M10B won that day with Lawrence’ second place enough to give him the series win.
Jaime Gard susses, whilst FM sucks on the sponsors product
Matich started at Warwick Farm from grid two with Graeme Lawrence on pole, he had an early coming together with Kevin Bartlett’s Mildren Waggott TC-4V, which Derek Kneller believes was the cause of the broken left-rear upright after 29 of the race’s 45 laps.
In a splendid drive, KB he won the race in the sweetest of racing cars, the Mildren Yellow Submarine, from Max Stewart’s Mildren Waggott TC-4V, Graeme Lawrence Ferrari Dino 246T 2.4 V6 and then the first of the F5000s- Niel Allen’s McLaren M10B Chev.
FM talks to Lugsy Adams looking particularly summer-posh in Rothmans Team Matich shorts ‘n long sox whilst Jaime Gard looks altogether more casual – not much they can do at this stage of proceedings.
FM’s Matich SR3 Repco was owned then by Don O’Sullivan, I imagine Gard was over from Perth and in-situ at the Matich workshops looking after the prep of that car, and totally involved otherwise – he of ‘Gardos’ fame I wrote about a while ago;https://primotipo.com/2017/11/30/dons-party-f5000-party/
Credits…
Lynton Hemer, John Lindsay, Russell Thorncraft, oldracingcars.com
Thanks to Kris Matich and Derek Kneller for assistance with event and people detail
Tailpiece…
FM’s Matich is fitted with an injected Chevvy here having commenced the series in New Zealand with units fitted with Webers. By this stage Matich’ Repco sponsorship was being refocused away from the Matich SR4 sportscar powered by 4.8/5 litre Repco RB760 V8’s in favour of the Repco Holden F5000 engines which were in the early stages of development by Phil Irving, Brian Heard and the rest of the crew in Maidstone.
The early promise of that Repco Holden engine was realised with FM’s Australian Grand Prix win aboard his M10B Repco at the Farm ten months hence
Finito…
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