Great pictures Stan!

Hope Phil is keeping well, any more pictures of the cars raced at these tracks?
Being the present custodian of Phils old slot cars i would be most interested in seeing any photos of them and any other cars they raced against.
Cheers
[oneofwos]

 

John,

Nobody seemed to bother with photos of cars in those days, perhaps because the old 'point and shoot' film cameras were lousy at close-ups!

I have some of Bill Willis' cars from when he stopped racing, including a very original condition HB F32 (B can), complete with HB sticker on the bottom. I was building up to taking some photos of that and placing them here, especially because Mr. B's F1 cars are doing well again!

As you have Phil's cars, maybe you could publish some photos of those here. He says he'll come to the official opening of the new track in Broadstairs, which will probably be a weekend in June and we would love to see you too. We will try to avoid any D3 race date - which reminds me, any progress on D3 dates for the rest of the year!

Stan.

 

Stanley ,what ever became of Tim Ryan and Mick Lawrence ? Both one time Timaru members I believe ?

 

Stan
Will be away most of May so not able to attend the opening, glad Phil will be there though.
No dates yet set for further D3 so when your ready pick a date.
Good luck with the new track.
[oneofwos]

 

Graham,

Not guilty on either count. I associate Tim, I hope not wrongly, with Coulsden and what was I believe a separate club in Bromley.

Mick Lawrence was also Bromley and also often to be seen at Dave Harvey's 1-0-1 shop track in Gillingham. I asked Dave, he thinks that Mick Lawrence was last heard of running an antique shop in Tunbridge Wells.

Of course, they were all Area 9 racers!

Stan.

 

Stan I must be getting senile (again) for some reason I thought Tim and mick were Timaru members . Thanks for clearing that up

 

Great photos, Stan. Thanks for posting them.
Be sure to keep us informed when the re-opening is due.

Regards,
L.

 

Hi Stan,

Are we all going to wear 1970s paddock jackets at are 50 years get to gether ?, i so i am nipping down to oxfam before all the second hand ferrari ones turn up towards the end of the year !!!!. Shame graham has got rid of his nice red one that he has on in the brands hatch photos.

the nutter from near the back !!!! ( on slotforum at last ) ( many thanks to admin doug )

 

Dave,

Just come as you are, that's normally suitably retro anyway

Stan.

 

Hi Stan
john davis was a member of North london SMe during the mid 70s and he certsainly came to the beritish Gp with the NLSME crew during that time
john was avery useful member of the club because if there were any work parties needed for maintenance then john was always up for it
during his time with us he picked up the nickname of John "Brasso" Davis due to the fact that when ever he built the chissis of a care it was ale#ways beautifully polished
I remember pete williams being a member of the great medway club during the late 70s early 80s during which time he won a couple of national championships
Are these guys still about ? I hope so ,and if you manage to contact them for your reunion ,dont forget to mention my book to them ,you did a good job with steve Walker

great to have such a photographic schedule of all the ages of timaru .thanks for sharing it with us

Cheers tony

 

Actually Tony it was your truly who did the sales pitch on your book to Steve walker when he called me out of the blue a few weeks ago looking for Stan's telephone number to set up the meeting that has resulted in the pics and info that Stan has posted.

As regards John Davis he was very helpful to me when I started racing at Timaru both in terms of car prep and a lift to and from the Club.

At that time John worked for the GPO research facility at Dollis Hill and would race at N London on a Thursday and then most weekends come back to East Kent to see his parents and race at Timaru on the Friday evening.

When the GPO moved to Suffolk John went with them and became one of the founders of Ipswich SCC with Nigel Harvey.

I last saw John at one the Ipswich S32 meetings several years ago at which time he had just about given up slot racing.

Stan also has several pics of more recent Timaru tracks which hopefully he may be able to post at some stage - the track at the Bull pub (1980/1984), the track at the Seaview pub (1984/1997) and I believe pics of our most recent track at the Parks Depot are still on our website.

 

Hi Stan,

My name is not dave, i know this to be true , all the doctors told me so !!. The carpet at the NEW TIMARU TRACK ROOM has been cleaned today ( wednesday ) all ready for the NEW SUPER FAST TIMARU RACEWAY when it turns up hopefully next week.

gladys the timaru char woman.

p,s i managed a 4.200 lap of the new track last night, then the alarm clock went off $%#@@!<% , oh well back to the mop and bucket.

gladys at the back.

 

QUOTE My name is not dave, i know this to be true , all the doctors told me so !!.

Aaahhh, wrong identification but still the right conclusion! :

Welcome to SlotForum Bill.

Stan.

 

QUOTE john was avery useful member of the club because if there were any work parties needed for maintenance then john was always up for it
during his time with us he picked up the nickname of John "Brasso" Davis due to the fact that when ever he built the chissis of a care it was ale#ways beautifully polished
I remember pete williams being a member of the great medway club during the late 70s early 80s during which time he won a couple of national championships
Are these guys still about ? I hope so ,and if you manage to contact them for your reunion ,dont forget to mention my book to them ,

Tony, thanks for contributing to this thread!

John Davis and I were in the same year at school together. He started with Mike Short's Atina Club in Ramsgate and then adopted Timaru (and became Club Champion) when Atina closed. I spoke to him last week and we hope that he can make it to the Timaru 50th bash and new track Grand Opening. He has a health issue which prevents active club participation but 'still maintains and interest in slot racing.

I don't know what happened to Pete Williams and I was hoping that someone who might see this thread would chip in with information! Steve Walker isn't in touch with Pete Williams either or Pete Crane. Didn't the latter marry into the Charlie Fitzpatrick family?

I first mentioned the idea of an online article about the '81 Championship cars to Steve Walker a couple of years ago - it took a while for the seed to germinate and hopefully this might encourage other interesting cars from that era to emerge and appear in these threads.

I will wave around my copy of your book, Tony, at our new track christening bash, assuming that I get it back from Mr Walker who currently has it whilst awaiting his copy in the post.

Stan Kirk.

 

Hi stan ?Graham
thanks for the heads up on the book ,steve has ordered one form me which I posted on monday so he should have it by ,
now
good luck with your 50th ,its great avhievement as only a handful of clubs have continuous running over 50 years
I think it may be North londons 50th anniversary next year
Dont forget to take plenty of pictures

Cheers tony

 

Hi All,
Just a quick photo, this is a very rare photo of the timaru portable track !!!.We put the old dear up at a recent hobbies fair .The track was built about 20 years ago, and this is the first time it has been used for at least 10 years !.

bill jenner (the nutter at the back ) ( gladys the the char woman )

and one half of the norfolk & chance race team.

 

S

A better shot of our old portable. All the large hammer marks and blood have been removed from this shot, it really took a lot of work to bring the old girl from out of her dark corner up at the old timaru track room.
many thanks to graham who did much of heavy rhythmic hammer work, and to gladys who did the moping up at the end.

bill.

P,S NO SLOTCARS WERE HURT DURING THE USE OF THIS TRACK .

P,P,S THE LADS USE TO RUN GROUP 12 MOTORS AROUND HERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Sorry, thats bob and graham in the top photo, i am outside holding back the multitude of fans and autograph hunters, gladys has the camra balanced on top of her mop for a better shot ?.

bill.

 

A couple more photos from the Timaru archives.

These are Timaru 2 and Timaru 3, the second and third wooden built tracks.

Timaru 1 was the track built for Worth Mill (situated just outside Sandwich in Kent) which features in the early part of this thread and which subsequently moved to the Fleur De Lys pub in Sandwich. The track moved upstairs at the Fleur (a fact which I had forgotten) on a change of Landlord in 1978. That will have been the arrival of Randolph (aka 'Randy') who also had a business interest in a couple of interesting establishments trading as 'School Dinners' in Baker Street and Holborn in London and which involved young ladies dressed in......but I digress!

The Club lasted another year at the Fleur but then the space was needed for more bedrooms or something and the club then moved a few miles to the Bull at Eastry (Timaru 1 ending its days as firewood!) where a new track was built between Jan - Apr 1980. This was situated in what had been the upstairs hayloft of the stable (the Bull being a former coaching inn). I remember the stairs as lethal (although long standing members had plenty of lethal stairs experience at Worth Mill) and the floor was in places rotten, still with unrepaired holes where people had stepped through. Such are the places where slot racing clubs operate. Apparently we found the Bull through my connections with CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale - no not something you take photos with Bill), a fact which I had also forgotten - obviously memory lapses due to too many school dinners!

This is Timaru 2 at the Bull in Eastry.

One downside of Pubs is change of landlord. This duly happened in 1984 and the club moved to the Seaview Hotel in Birchington. The name is a misnomer as it was a couple of miles form the sea, so no seaview. This pub/hotel was taken over by friends of club members Richard and Pete Bayliss. No stairs this time but plenty of drafts and no heat as the location was an outbuilding previously used as a coal shed and storeroom. Timaru 2 was cannabalised with some sections rearranged and some new sections added to make Timaru 3. I remember the resulting track as being very high. Any deslot along the back wall straight was a definite 'track call' as you needed a long broom handle to knock the car back into the slot.

This is Timaru 3 at the Seaview Hotel in Birchington.

I'm sorry that there are no more photos covering this era as we didn't then have the equivalent of a Phil Green (responsible for the 60's and 70's photos) keeping a photo archive.

Suggestion to all clubs, make sure you take and keep lots of photos - with digital it is now much easier than it was!

If any readers have knowledge which they can add to this story, we would love to hear from you!

The Club survived two changes of landlord at the Seaview until mid 1997. A new track, Timaru 4, was built Jan - Oct 1999 and this is the track featured currently on the Club's web site; www.timaru.co.uk

This track has now gone to the 4LBT club in Swindon and we look forward to racing on it again.

Meantime we await the arrival of Timaru 5 (see New Track thread in the Timaru section of SlotForum) at the new Crampton Tower premises in Broadstairs - possibly the least cruddy premises the club has ever occupied!

Stan Kirk.

 

hello stan, alan p told me about the reunion so we thought we might come, might even bring my wife, is she safe with phil green around ?

 

Chris,

Fantastic to hear from you, we would be delighted to see you, Saturday 20 June at 3 pm at the new Track at the Crampton Tower Museum, Broadstairs.

I saw Phil recently for the first time in 3 decades. Now age 90 and just the same as he always was

I hope that Alan can make it too.

Also hoping that Dave Harvey and Steve Walker will be there.

Are you in touch with any other former slot racers?

Stan Kirk.

 

Hi Stan, here is another bad penny from the past showing up! I was recently trying to introduce my youngest son to the joys of slot car racing as I experienced them back in the sixties and somehow found myself here. Fantastic to see the early Timaru pictures and see your name up there! I left for Canada on June the 30th 1967 as I recall, so would have missed out on the July 1967 photo by just a few days. Great to see all the old faces again, especially Mike Short, as I remember him with great appreciation for providing me with a lift to the club and back from Ramsgate. He was a very exciting driver in his Ford Anglia - especially on the after the pub nights!

I remember racing at Timaru right up to leaving England and I think I was leading the F1 championship at the time and doing well in the other open wheeled class we had (a kind of Formula Libre class) also. Of course that may just be a case of a convenient memory at work! I still have some of my cars and other bits from back then.

Would be great to hear from you and catch up on all your news some time when you have a moment.

Best Regards from Canada,
Rick Jones

 

Richard,

Fantastic to hear from you and welcome to Slotforum. I have also sent you a Slotforum Private Message which I hope you can work out how to pick up.

Also fantastic that you have kept some of your 60's slot kit. Slotforum is definitely the place to share that type of stuff, once you've worked out how to post photgraphs here.

Did you continue with slot racing once you got to Canada?

Stan Kirk.

 

I tried to continue slot racing when I got here but sadly there was nothing like the marvelous UK club scene to be found anywhere. I eventually located a commercial track in the next city from where we lived and went over there a few times but it was purely operated for the bucks and there was none of the camaraderie of Timaru. It wasn't the same so I moved on to chasing girls and fast cars instead.

It took a while for the girls to succumb to the charms of this particular puny little Brit so in the meantime I worked my way through multiple Mini's and MG's up to an E type convertible by which time my luck had improved considerably. The E type eventually made way for various other purely racing vehicles that I thrashed around Mosport for a couple of years including a Lotus Europa and Formula V and Ford single seaters but unfortunately I quickly learnt that racing big cars is a lot more expensive than the little electric ones! I raced karts for several years but these days in the interests of ecology I have downsized again. My passion now is vintage motorcycle racing.

I just accessed your message so will send more to you there over the weekend.

IT is Friday evening. Wouldn't it be great to be on my way to Timaru again!

Rick

 

I thought I was going to be reading a post about a Slot Club in New Zealand. I guess that is where his dad is from.

Timaru