Variety Trillian Bash: drama before the start

16 March, 2016

As vehicles slowly arrived for scrutineering at the start of the Variety Trillian Bash on March 11, it was uncertain whether the full line-up would make it. The 1981 Beststart V8 fire truck was towed off the Desert Road and the NZAF mechanical team was trying to get it going as we were writing this article, the Powerparts Thunderbirds 2 holed a flux capacitor at Matamata.  Parker said, “That’s what you get when you have 425,000km on the instrument cluster.”

Still, Ohakune’s Seuss Subbus had picked up some of the Beststart crew, and were snapped heading through Taihape en route to Bulls.

The Subbus Crew launched the Bash when team captain Kandy Mott handed over a cheque for $4668 to Bulls School principal Kim Gordon for a basket swing. Ms Gordon said, “The teachers suspect that some of their students suffer from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Studies show that rhythmic patterning calms the brainstem and allows children to be better focused  in the classroom. The school has already noticed an improvement by using rocking horses in the classrooms, and believe that a swing will bring a significant change.”

Not everyone passes scrutineering, which is not a surprise given the age of these vehicles. Stu’s Crew needed attention on the 1963 V8 Fairlane from the Royal New Zealand Air Force boys, who use the Variety Trillian Bash as a training exercise.

Meanwhile the rest of the teams slowly arrived at Tatum Park on the Friday evening to sign in before the Levin start and the drive to Blenheim. They entertained children from the Child Cancer Foundation on the Bluebridge dock from noon.

Photos: Jacqui Madelin

A second dose of Dash

When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018 it was duly taken along for entry certification. Vehicle Inspection NZ (VINZ) found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways.
We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington and I pored over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work.

Lunch with… Jim Palmer

In the 1960s, Hamilton’s Jim Palmer won the prestigious ‘Gold Star’ four times and was the first resident New Zealander home in the New Zealand Grand Prix on five consecutive occasions. He shared the podium with Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, and Chris Amon. The extent of his domination of the open-wheeler scene in New Zealand will probably never be matched or exceeded. Yet he’s always been modest about his achievements.