Leadfoot Festival: Classic, vintage and madly modern

Rod Millen's Celica proved untouchable - despite the 14-year-old tyres. Photo / Mark Christensen

Rod Millen sat down as the sun set on the first full running of his Leadfoot Festival, obviously very tired, very happy and, deservedly, extremely proud.

The three day event was the culmination of a massive effort by Millen, his wife Shelly and a band of committed staff and volunteers. It has firmly planted the seed of a Godzone equivalent of the legendary Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK.

With a list of invited drivers that was a who's who of Kiwi motorsport, both past and present, and a list of offshore luminaries that included Juan Fangio II (the great one's nephew) the event showed why we love racing, without the political bullshit that regularly threatens to choke the sport from its grassroots up.

A spectacular mix of classic, vintage and modern cars and motorbikes were tasked with a number of runs up Millen's 1.6km, purpose-built driveway that winds through his idyllic cliff's edge Hahei property.

It would have been borderline impossible to wipe the grins from the drivers' faces. Aside from a couple of unfortunate incidents that bruised bodywork more than bodies and shattered a couple of egos, it was pure, unadulterated motorsport fun, that was as refreshing for the spoiled spectators as it was for the 100-plus drivers.

Those who braved mostly-vain MetSevice threats of nasty weather witnessed a Formula One car going nuts on a bloke's driveway, saw a handful of vintage bikes that'd easily buy a spread in Remmers, and Millen himself defend the record he set last year during the invite-only 'test session' for Leadfoot on his 60th birthday weekend.

The ex-Denny Hulme McLaren driven with extreme bravery by Phil Mauger was an unforgettable highlight, and Millen himself put the rubber to the road in his Toyota Celica Pikes Peak record hillclimber, a Tundra truck that was happiest when very, very sideways, his freshly-restored 13B PP RX3 and even his APRC Mazda 323.

Sons Rhys and Ryan both had a ball as well, although former world drift champ and Hollywoodstunt driver Rhys admitted he would have been keen to run his fire-breathing Hyundai Veloster rallycross car that was disappointingly detained in pre-season prep.

Anne Thomson's unwavering and hugely demanding assaults on the driveway impressed everyone - perched atop a gigantic 1906 Darracq powered with a 14-litre monster that was rescued from its conscription as a back-up generator for a Canterbury newspaper, she didn't back down for a second.

The weekend finished with a Top Ten Shootout - not really in keeping with the wide variety of class, power and pace that, but an exciting way to close a brilliant weekend. Millen nearly had to give away his Leadfoot record to the staggeringly quick SuperQuad of Ian Ffitch when he missed and early shift in the single-run, winner takes all, Shootout.

"I knew had a good second up my sleeve," said Millen. "But the Celica is an 18-year-old car on 14-year-old tyres, so when I missed a shift at the bottom I thought I might be in trouble. So I pushed it hard for the rest of the run."

That strategy worked, and he despatched the course in just 51.50 - closely followed by SuperQuad maniac Ian Ffitch 53.31 and Steve Murphy, who managed 53.56 in his 650hp, V8-powered Mitsubishi Cordia.

Millen had an air of utter relaxation after the prizegiving, as millions of dollars worth of classic racing machinery was loaded on trucks, trailers and - for the genuine F40 and seriously expensive vintage bikes in the field - transporters. But earlier in the week the forecast was for anything but plain sailing.

"If I reflect back seven days ago I saw this big ol' storm coming in and there were two more after it," he said, perched on a chair at the 'black barn' which served as one of the several packed 'pits' for the weekend, "and I just thought wow!"

"During the course of the week we had 12 inches of rain, we had 120km/h winds - I was a big challenge for the whole property in that all our marquees were in place and the wind was trying to blow those down.

"We were up into the early hours of the morning sometimes trying to hold them all down. We did, but we got a little bit behind with all that rain, and it became very challenging for us. The cars were showing up and it was very, very wet underfoot and I was wondering just how all this was going to pan out."

Last Sunday dawned, but you couldn't really tell, as fog and a steady Coromandel rain looked like it was unwilling to let this huge carbon footprint stomp on any more of the hippy-dippy surrounds.

"We decided to push the start back an hour," explained Millen, "because the fog was so low that the Westpac helicopter couldn't get in.

"But everyone started rolling out, and they figured out where the muddy spots were on the way to the track, and they got around those spots - with a wonderful attitude - and put on a show. Whether it was the cars or the bikes, the fans still saw a good show and a good fight to the finish."

Millen admitted that the relaxed surrounds, friendly field and happy racing harked back to an earlier, far less political, era in motorsport.

"This is a celebration, not a competition per se, of not only the old cars, but the old, very successful drivers - just seeing them in some of those old cars again, out there and competing, there was still very much a race going on. And at the end of the day here, when we go to the Top Ten Shootout, but it doesn't really matter who wins."

But it was nice to win, right?

"It was very nice to win - I'd asked for all the times at the start line to see who had done what, and where I stacked up. I thought okay, I've still got just under a second up my sleeve. But when I missed a shift at the bottom, I thought I was in trouble. It seemed like I lost five seconds."

Rhys Millen had a shot at driving his father's awesome Toyota Tundra that wowed crowds at the Queenstown Race to the Sky a good decade ago with its innate jumping ability - hanging 19-inches of suspension travel underneath as it flew over jumps at the bottom of the course like they were supermarket carpark judder bars.

"Rhys drove the Tundra - I ran it first and laid down a time, then he came back and laid down a time two seconds quicker, so then I laid down a time two seconds quicker than that. With that family rivalry - the fun of all that, it was great as well. Ryan was in the RX7 and the Cayenne (that he and Rod cleaned up their class in, driving the challenging Trans-Siberian Rally). Peter Davison had just finished restoring the RX-3, so Rhys and I pedalled that as well."

A pleasant stroll down memory lane?

"It really was - to be able to get back into one of those cars, still rear-wheel-drive and having to slide it around to get it up the road was really, really special."

Millen says that lessons have been learned this year, but with the same fierce determination that saw him pick up more silverware around the world than most gravel worshippers could dream of, the Leadfoot Festival will be here to stay.

"I'm really pleased how our first year turned out. There's certainly a credibility issue that we needed to establish - when I talk to the competitors they seemed to have a wonderful weekend. That was key to us first up - if we can get all the drivers here enjoying themselves and putting on a good show, I think we can get the fans following and wanting to see it. It's up to us to mix it up year upon year and invite different cars and different drivers so that we always keep the event fresh and exciting. "

Millen's list of highlights for the weekend mirrored most of the crowd's - there are now some hard men of motor racing that list a woman in her seventies as a hero.

"Ann Thompson with that Darracq, when I watched her in the car at the start line, and they we she drove that up this road. She was hustling that thing! Along with that, the other favourite cars for me were Danny Ryan's 1919 Lancia (Kappa Sport) and Peter Sundberg's 1932 Alfa Romeo (8C Monza). That captures all the essence of what the event is about.

"It's bringing out the old cars and still seeing them driven with a bit of anger by people who really know what they're doing. We're not interested in their times - we're most interested in the show that they're putting on.

"There's lots of cars - keep in mind seeing the old Denny Hulme Yardley McLaren there, that was a real thrill. Until the Top Ten Shootout he was second fastest - he was really hustling that car as well.

"Those sort of things are really, really special. Over time here we want to look for all of those old, historically significant race cars and invite them to play with us.

"You can come and look at these cars when they've finished driving, see them up close and see this marvellous engineering that was done fifty, sixty, seventy, even eighty years ago. That in itself is incredible. For me to be able to do that and see that means a lot more than going into a museum and seeing something that's been beautifully restored."

Many visitors to the beautiful Haihei property were shocked to see ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons wandering the pit paddock - and when he hit the stage on Saturday night for an impromptu performance at the Leadfoot Ball, jaws dropped.

To think of bands with an affinity for cars, ZZ Top's Eliminator is not far from front of mind - hip hoppers with Escalades on 23-inch gold spinners or squillion-dollar Maybachs (who strangely still can't seem to afford belts) don't even figure.

Gibbons says he loves New Zealand, and when the invite was proffered, resistance was futile.

"Ah, the good luck cloud that surrounds my touring holiday," said the man whose awesome beard has its own weather system. "I got this unexpected call out of the blue asking me to come to New Zealand. I was on a plane and ready to rock!"

Gibbons, who lists his favourite car as "the one that's running" is in awe of the Kiwi petrolhead.

"The one thing that running through my mind is the passion and enthusiasm that you guys have for your cars is just amazing - it's like the whole country just loves their cars. Take a look around this place," he said, waving a hand across the Leadfoot vista, "and it's pretty obvious."

And will Billy Gibbons come back for Leadfoot again?

"In a second," he says, after a brief pause to admire the legendary American El Cabalo that's parked next to us during the interview.

To keep on top of next year's Leadfoot Festival plans, see the official website here.