On Te
Puna’s busy roads of today, it is hard to believe that for a Saturday afternoon
in January 1961, two of its most important thoroughfares were closed. And not for the first time – the Tauranga
Motorcycle Club had been able to do this since 1955, just before my family
arrived in Te Puna. The family in the
photo above is still to be identified, but the image shows the cheerful
interest that was taken in these races, described in combative terms: “thrilling
duel”, “battle”, “challenger”, “desperate effort”. Road races, on real roads, were the stuff of
drama.
By 1961, Te
Puna Road had been tar sealed but was significantly narrower than it is today. Its long, flattish stretch from the main
highway provided starting and finishing straights for a series of motorcycle
races, “conducted under ideal conditions [and] watched by a good crowd”. [1]
You can
find the starting line today. It was at
the entryway to number 78, Te Puna Road.
This was
probably not the only start-point, however.
The NZ Lightweight TT race ran over 20 miles, which by my calculation of
the route used meant a half-lap had to be accommodated somewhere. The TT (standing for “Tourist Trophy”, a term
of art in the motorcycling world) probably began at the corner of Borell and
Snodgrass Roads, where there still is a short straight to roar off on, then down
over the railway bridge and uphill for a mild left turn into Armstrong Road before its chicanes taxed the riders’ skills.
After that, they went for five further laps before the finish line
outside number 78 on Te Puna Road.
All the other
roads, in 1961, were surfaced with metal from the Te Puna Quarry. Pink/grey rhyolite, ready to crumble and turn
to dust, but in “ideal conditions” skiddy, slidy fun stuff to zoom along on -
as long as you were ahead of the pack. But
not even then. In 1961, the leading contender in the 350 cc race, F. Cardon,
had to retire when “a stone dropped down the venturi mouth of his carburettor.”
The longer,
32-mile races, took seven circuits for the 350 cc and 500 cc racing bikes. In 1961, the winner of the 350 cc class, J.
Farnsworth, set “a new lap record of 3.29s” over the 3.7 mile circuit. Less than a mile a minute on average: given
the twists and turns of the route, this must have meant some crazy speeds on
the straights.
It also
meant a thrilling afternoon for the “good crowd”. Haybales lined the corner of Borell Road, just
after the other, Te Puna Road, railway bridge; at George and Bubbles Waterman’s
chook farm on Snodgrass Road; and at Armstrong Road, where Alistair Clark’s
house still stands. This was a
counter-clockwise circuit, with left-hand turns all the way.
Spectators
lined the route, and I imagine (I was always at the start/finish line) that
another landmark Te Puna property, Rex Williams’ farm, famous for Rex’s
collection of machinery and variously-powered engines, provided a vantage point
for knowledgeable enthusiasts, later to be known as petrol-heads.
Motorcycle road
racing seems not to have lasted in Tauranga much beyond 1961. Images in the Photo News, which came to
Tauranga in 1962, show cross-country races on the Papamoa Hills and the startup
of Bay Park. Its editor would surely
have included a road-race story if one had happened. These days, the Tauranga Motorcycle Club does
its racing off-road, at the TECT Park. A
very different landscape to the placid pastorale of 1950’s Te Puna, which
tolerated – on the evidence, actively enjoyed – having its peace and rights of
way destroyed for a summer afternoon’s excitement.
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