Speed

This collection has two backgrounds:

Broadcaster Robert Rakete on the 'Speedy Kiwi'

By Robert Rakete 17 Aug 2009

I grew up in South Auckland watching Formula 1 on the tele. All my mates wanted to play for the Kiwis ... but I wanted to race for McLaren. While everyone worshipped [Kiwis rugby league legend] Mark Graham, I wanted to be Ayrton Senna.

Why? What other job lets you dress up in your flameproofs, kiss your model-girlfriend, strap on your helmet and absolutely cane it in the world's fastest cars? What other workday is all about pushing it and yourself with each lap to brake later, go faster - in search of that ultimate buzz - speed.

Ok, so I never scored a drive in F1, but I have worn my flameproofs on the grid at the world's biggest race.

The Indianapolis 500 is the biggest single day sporting event in the world, which New Zealander Scott Dixon won in 2008 making him a household name in the US. When the drivers fire up their engines, the ground actually rumbles, and the roar of the 400,000 people at the track fills your ears. Then, as the 33 cars pass the green flag they are doing 300+ km/h, three cars across, down the front straight.

It is like nothing you will ever see, hear or feel in your life. It is pure speed - and it is both exciting and terrifying.

Like Scott, and many Kiwis before him, we have always been fascinated by the need to go that lil' bit faster. New Zealanders have long excelled behind the wheel and in the garage. The Team McLaren racing team that Bruce McLaren founded in 1966, has been the most successful in Formula One; John Britten, with a bike whose first skeleton was literally moulded out of No.8 fencing wire in his Christchurch garage, took on and beat the biggest and richest manufacturers at Daytona.

Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren were two icons of speed. Denny is our only F1 world champion and was one of the bravest and quickest drivers in any car, in any race. McLaren himself was a four-times Grand Prix winner, and had success at Can Am, and at Le Mans with another fast Kiwi - Chris Amon.

McLaren died tragically young (in a race-track accident), but he achieved a lot in his 32 years, and it seems so right that he tagged all his cars with a symbol of his love for home, a symbol that simply became known as 'Speedy Kiwi'.

Going fast isn't a specifically Kiwi trait, but our approach to speed has turned up some uniquely Kiwi stories. Many of those stories are celebrated in this fine collection. These men lived to race, to go faster, to win. From Burt Munro to Bruce McLaren, from Ivan Mauger to John Britten, Pukekohe to Monaco.

In his autobiography From The Cockpit McLaren summed up the spirit: "It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone."

Sports Presenter Geoff Bryan on getting hooked

By Geoff Bryan 17 Aug 2009

I came to an appreciation of speed later than most. In my role as a sportscaster, when I’m lucky enough to chat with leading New Zealand drivers, almost without exception what has fired their initial enthusiasm for speed is a member of the family.

As a young boy growing up in England, I was not so fortunate - it was more Charlton, Hurst and Best rather than Hill, Clark and Moss. Not for me that peculiarly antipodean sense of appreciating speed, although I do remember there was one brief, but unspectacular, attempt to kindle interest with a family visit to a race day at Brands Hatch.

As all I remember is that the Red Arrows (Royal Air Force fighter jet acrobatics) performed and there was a huge traffic jam on the way home. I can safely say it prepared me for nothing more than, decades later, driving home in Auckland traffic.

In New Zealand, my first exposure to racing came at Pukekohe, and there will, I’m sure, be a general sense of astonishment when I reveal that it was raining. This was in 1972 for the 24 Hour Race. OK - so we didn’t do the full 24 hours, and I was only there because I was staying with my best mate’s family and he wanted to go with his friends, but like Brands Hatch, it did not end well.

I was unaware at this point that Pukekohe had a micro-climate that meant it poured with rain as soon as a key was turned in the ignition. The rain turned the carpark into a slushy bog in which tyre grip became a serious issue. Inevitably, as we tried to leave, the car slid into a nearby vehicle, which was occupied.

To this day, I remember the instruction from the driver - “get out and look tough” - this was not easy for a 16-year-old whose build could have been charitably described as scrawny.

Some years later, the switch went to “on”. Rally driver Lewis Scott took it upon himself to scare the living daylights out of me as a passenger through some roads out the back of Lower Hutt. He did this at a speed that I would estimate to be about one kilometre-per-hour short of a serious accident, and the end result of that day with Lewis was that, for months afterwards, every time I was on a plane it felt as though it was not going fast enough to take off.

From that point, I was hooked, and I have been lucky enough, through my job, to be associated with speed for more than a decade.

We all know that New Zealand punches above its weight when it comes to speed; our history is filled with unlikely stories of achievement against the odds. So many of the sportspeople with whom I have had dealings with are driven by a love for what they do. This collection of titles celebrates that passion and records its legacy.

I have come to realise that it’s not important that I came to an appreciation of speed later than most. It’s that I have been lucky enough to come to it at all.