Historic HB: Crowds drawn to Ahuriri road races

Angus Hyslop's in his Jaguar D-Type on the way to winning the 1959 over 1500cc race for sports cars. Credit: Kerry Nattrass

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the creation of the province of Hawke's Bay in 1958, the Hawke's Bay Car Club in association with the Napier Centennial Celebrations Committee held a road race meeting around a 2km course in Ahuriri – then thought of as a "quiet suburb by the sea".

Six years earlier, an attempt was made to hold a street race in Ahuriri in November 1952 and after considerable organisation for the event, Napier City Council advised that central government permission was refused.

The Napier Motor Racing Club, however, in September 1956, held an event consisting of four motorbike races and one sidecar race on a 1.6 km circuit in Ahuriri.
The November 22, 1958, road races were organised after the Hawke's Bay Car Club held a secret ballot in August that year to determine if the members wanted to organise an Ahuriri road race. Sixty were for the races and nine against. This time all permissions were received.

Kerry Nattrass became involved in the Hawke's Bay Car Club in 1957 after becoming interested in navigational time trial competitions, after observing one take place. Along with his girlfriend Jo, who later became his wife, they entered and won their first trial.

Both Kerry and Jo became long time members of the Hawke's Bay Car Club and were respective men's and women's champions on occasions.

When the Hawke's Bay Car Club got involved to organise the Ahuriri road races, motor mechanic Kerry became involved on the organising committee and as a scrutineer he was responsible to check the cars were in fit condition to race. Initially Montagu Robinson was the chief scrutineer – or as many knew him as Robbie of "Motoring with Robbie".

Forty entries were received for eight handicap and three scratch races ranging from a 490cc Cooper Mark IX to a 3900cc Ford V8 coupe.

Drivers on the 2km course would start at Hyderabad Rd before entering Bridge St, then take a sharp corner into Coronation St, where speeds of over 160km/h could be achieved by the Grand Prix cars, before another sharp turn into Battery Rd. Races consisted from four to 12 laps of the circuit.

In order to protect the drivers, hay bales were placed around the power and telegraph poles on the circuit, and one year it was Kerry's job to deliver them to the course and take them back to the farmer.

He still remembers the Mercedes truck he had borrowed from a customer of the family garage being loaded up with bales, and on a trip to Twyford to return them, he could feel the load becoming insecure, necessitating a crawl to the location from the Pakowhai dip near the Chesterhope Bridge.

Protection of the 10,000 plus spectators, however, would prove more troublesome.

There was a grandstand erected in Bridge St near the start line, and other spectators were placed in and around the circuit.

Michael Fowler

Those people that didn't pay to enter the course, as pictured, took up positions on Hospital Hill. One 18-year-old man fell down a bank, and was taken to hospital, but when found to be uninjured returned to the racetrack. The Hawke's Bay Car Club made many warnings about watching from "precipitous banks".

To keep people safe, the car club had 128 marshals to try and stop people from crossing the race track.

There were close calls, and on one occasion spectators near the Coronation St corner quickly removed themselves as a car spun out and crashed, fortunately into a hay bale.

As the Ahuriri road circuit was said to be one of the most interesting in New Zealand, another road race was held on November 21, 1959 with 52 entries.

Another two were staged on February 18, 1961 and March 28, 1964.

No one was ever seriously injured in the races, despite a few spectacular crashes occurring over the four Ahuriri road races.

Some famous names were attracted to the events, including Denny Hulme and locals Crownthorpe farmer Angus N Hyslop (1928‒1999) and local GP Dr Dick Langley.

In 1960, Angus competed in the Lady Wigram Trophy race, coming third behind legends Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham. This resulted in him being selected as "Driver for Europe" in 1961, awarded by the New Zealand Grand Prix Association.

During his Europe races, he won in Italy, Denmark, Sicily and Britain while driving a Lotus.

Denny Hulme and Angus Hyslop competed at the 1961 Le Mans in a works Fiat Abarth 8505 and finished 14th but won their class.

In his prime, Angus raced with and beat the types of New Zealand household names such as Chris Amon and Denny Hulme. He was a close friend of New Zealand motor racing legend Bruce McLaren.

In 1964, Angus retired from Grand Prix racing after winning the New Zealand Gold Star championship in 1963 but competed several times in the New Zealand Heatway Rally in the 1970s.

It was also the last year that Ahuriri road races were held, but still hold many fond memories for those that attended.

- Michael Fowler (mfhistory@gmail.com) is a contract researcher and writer of Hawke's Bay history.