F1Weekly Podcast # 1156

ON TODAYS PROGRAM…

TOTO WAS SO HAPPY WITH THE SAFETY CAR FINISH AT SILVERSTONE!

MAX TO MCLAREN WILL NEVER HAPPEN!

WHAT ABOUT MAX FOLLOWING ADRIAN NEWEY TO ASTON MARTIN?? AND NOW……. WE HAVE…

FERNANDO GOING TO ALPINE AND FLAVIO…RIDICULOUS X3

THIS WEEK’S NASIR HAMEED CORNER WE HAVE: A MOMENT IN MOTORSPORTS HISTORY…INTERVIEW WITH HOWDEN GANLEY ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EMPLOYEES AT MCLAREN!!

WE DO NEED YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO KEEP THIS PROGRAM ON THE AIR JUST CLICK ON THE SUPPORT F1W TAB ON THE FRONT PAGE YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!

howden ganley...

Born in 1941 in Hamilton, New Zealand, Howden Ganley’s youthful ambitions were to either race yachts or play for the All Blacks New Zealand Rugby team. However, after attending 1955’s New Zealand Grand Prix with his father and brother his ambitions changed and he set his goal on racing in Formula 1. After leaving school, he became a reporter for a newspaper and wrote a column for a magazine and once he obtained his license he raced in local events in his Mother’s Morris Minor. He progressed to a Lotus Eleven but in order to fund his racing ambitions he was doing three jobs, on a construction site during the day, waiting tables in a restaurant at night then pumping gas at weekends. Once he obtained the Lotus he entered it for 1961’s New Zealand GP at Ardmore and he won his class in the sports car race plus a race for New Zealand drivers only. He went on to race for two seasons though in a wet race at Dunedin his car finished up wrapped round a telegraph pole but he was fortunately uninjured.

He eventually moved to the UK and began a career as a mechanic, becoming involved with Mike Moseley, who was planning on producing a road car called the Falcon 515. Once he helped get the car into production he would be allowed to build a lightweight version and race it. A friend, John Muller, helped him and he said the two shared a “bedsit over a railway line, ice on the inside of the window, single light socket hanging from the ceiling. There was a coin-slot meter, but we just plugged everything into that one light socket, because that was free, and put a six-inch nail across the fuse box.” From here he moved on and joined the Gemini Formula Junior team, as a mechanic and driver. He competed in his first single seater race at Goodwood and following this was the Nurburgring (finishing 14th out of 41 starters) but the team later lost their sponsorship and folded.

He then became involved with the Talon F3 car but then came an offer from Bruce McLaren and he became one of the first employees of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing, working alongside Wally Wilmott, Tyler Alexander and Eoin Young in “a shed in New Malden full of earth-moving equipment: dirt floor, work bench, vice, set of welding bottles, a hacksaw and a file.” When asked by Tyler and Wally ‘Why are you here?’, and telling them he was a mechanic, they told him “No you’re not. We don’t know whether you can thread a nut on the end of a bolt. You’re a gopher.” During this period he worked as crew chief at Drummond Racing for Skip Scott and Peter Revson during the 1966-67 Can-Am season. After purchasing a Brabham BT21, he went on to race for two years in the series then switched to a Chevron B15. Towards the end of 1969’s F3 season, despite starting 22nd on the grid at Brands Hatch, he was 11th by the fourth lap, sixth on lap 14 and on the last lap he was fourth after overtaking Francois Cevert in a Tecno. Going into the last corner while fighting another car for third he put a wheel on the grass, which let F.Cevert to get past. However, although he eventually finished fifth he had broken the circuit’s F3 lap record at an average of exactly 100mph.

His F3 racing then led to F5000 with a McLaren M10B-Chevrolet in 1970 and during the year he finished fourth in Oulton Park’s Gold Cup race and finished second in the series to