Pukekohe 22nd Classic Motorcycle Festival
Grand Prix Twin Spectacular Feb 2-4 2001  "100 Years of Indian"

I arrived at the track mid afternoon on Friday after a 7hr or so trip hauling the Chief in the El Camino.. yeah yeah, trailer queen I hear you mutter but with two events, this one, and the IORNZ 'Century of Indian' 10th annual rally the following weekend it lent itself perfectly to a holiday in between.

The theme of The New Zealand Classic Motorcycle Racing Register this year was of course '100 years of Indian' and the racers of  'Team Indian'  and us the supporters, set out to make it the best.

The boys had a very large marquee to erect and trust my luck, I  arrived during that process! - So I found a camp spot nearby and started to pitch in. During the greetings I was introduced to Art Delor,  visiting American and class C racer from Miami FL.
With the tight schedule of the meet I was unable to spend as much time as I would have with Art but I shared some infamous New Zealand oysters and chips and learned he had been racing for 6 years; mostly, on Indians, on his genuine 648 Daytona big base Scout as well as the sports scout he bought over with him (#47 - the yellow and teal one).

Team Indian NZ were to have had eight racers for this meet which was too include another American and 'T-Rex' my neighbor from Wellington who tried valiantly to finish the rebuild of "Running Bird" (#258) his 741 with mostly sport scout running gear, bored and stroked out to 960cc. Being only a couple of miles from Rex I spent an afternoon or two  there while he was finishing it and hoping to get some miles up, it wasn't to be and he was disappointed he was be unable to compete this meet.

Craig's racer (#648) was there but 'not ready' but it would turn out to be a blessing in disguise, valuable for robbing the cam gear from to keep Dave's racer (#741) in the picture after it suffered timing gear failure. Incidentally Dave told me the scout felt every bit as good with Craig's stock cams as it did with his bonneville ones.

During the day (and into the next)  many more Indians arrived, ridden, on trailers, in horse floats, you name it,  with some bought out into the light of day after decades of storage especially for the 100th Anniversary. The display was rapidly filling up with rare and beautiful  Indians, 1910 single, '28, '29 and '40 Fours, '25 Prince, '37 Std Scout,  '51 Chief, ' 52? Brave too name a few. The  440 is owned by Chris a kiwi who left home 27 years ago on the big O.E and only returned 18 months ago after living in Canada for 26 years (where he bought it 24 years ago!). It is a very original and complete four that runs like a Rolex watch, I was actually surprised at how quite the valve gear was compared to the twins.

By days end we had some 65+ injuns on display, a display that later the classic register was to state that it was one of the best they could recall, a real success it was and a credit to Malcolm Brown and the team...

One of my personal highlights, aside from having seen not my first four cylinder but three of them, was watching the 1912 8 valve racer  (#45) and work-of-art take to the blacktop, bringing images of the early twenties board track racers to mind. A triumph of modern engineering it was built almost entirely from scratch by owner/rider Ken Campbell of M.S engineering, who produced new crankcases and other parts from solid blocks of alloy. It was raced by Ken, Bob Leask and Paul Hanes and you could hear from the exhaust note it had very long legs and desired a much longer track. I have racing footage of it which I will make available for download at some time.

On both days those of us who wanted, and I wanted!, took to the track for several laps to parade our stead's of speed. More racing on Sunday with the boys up second to last placing Paul Hanes 1st on #30, Graeme Care 2nd on #180 and Art Delor just piping Malcolm Brown #269 for 3rd on #47. Well done everyone.

Sunday night was prize giving where I was lucky enough to pick up 'best chief' award, followed by a dining in which led on too celebrations, ending god only knows what hour in the morning. The entire camp visited around our marquee, us drawing the wayward like moths to a flame, consequently the rest of the night is censored <fortunately for firedog>

Prize Recipients and their mounts..

On Monday morning the camp was starting too clear, and as I had ridden the Chief to Malcolm's farm in Drury on Sunday I was free to blow out the night cobwebs and head to Tauranga to meet up with the family for a holiday before next the next weekends 10th Annual Indian Rally. Having only decided to attend the racing at the last minute I am very pleased I made the effort, it was an exceptional weekend, and one that  may not come along for another 100 years.

Also visit the Online Gallery for more than 100 additional photos