Chapter Fourteen
Chassis Racing.
1961-1964
Once Lou and I had decided to promote a new kind of car racing, we resolved to buy a suitable vehicle. In January 1961, I found my 'chassis' while looking through a second-hand car dealer's yard. It was a 1930 Pontiac and cost $16. I paid my money and Lou towed me home. On the way, I found that it had almost no brakes. At one stage, we narrowly missed a parked car, when the tie rod fell off. Then we stripped it down to the chassis, leaving only the firewall, with the steering wheel attached. We removed all the glass, the doors, roof, walls, floor, carrier, running boards, bonnet, radiator, seats and the 20 gallon petrol tank.
We made a petrol tank out of a 1 gallon can and placed it over the carburettor. Then we welded in a bucket seat and fitted a seatbelt. Last of all, I got a 2 inch water pipe, which I bent into a semicircle, filled it with concrete and made a roll bar. The Pontiac went like a rocket and handled like a dream. We decided to call it a Chassis Racer.
While we were stripping it down, many people stopped to see what we were up to. Most became interested, so in January 1961 Lou and I formed the New Zealand Chassis Racing Club. (NZCRC). We then talked other people into joining the Club and our ranks quickly increased. We held club meetings in my garage, and in the weekends, we ran road trials in our road cars. Having terrorised the locals for several weeks, we towed the finished chassis to a farm in Albany, owned by Mr Cullen. My chassis was designated number 10. But you can't race with only one car. George Young purchased a 1929 Graham Paige and stripped it down and affixed number 16 to it. When the Paige arrived at the Albany track, the rear of the body was still on. Lou poked a long branch through the rear windows and drove at speed between two pine trees. With a shattering roar and much laughter, the body parted company from the rest of the chassis.
In early February, the first race was fought between #10 and #16. Meanwhile, Lou Shilton was frantically preparing a 1924 Chrysler, later to become #41.