Photo Gallery of Taranaki Historic Speedway Ass. Inc.

Midget cars and drivers (called speedcars in Australia)         Return to Home

Number 2 on right is Roly Crowther in his early V8-60 powered car.
A regular visitor to Waiwakaiho from Auckland in the 1950's

Number 13 is local Theo Dodunski. A regular and popular competitor
at early Waiwakaiho meetings. He built this car and helped build several others.

John Arthur on right was an early competitor and first president of the
New Plymouth Speedway Club at Waiwakaiho.

Below is Barry Handlin who was a regular at Waiwakaiho and shifted to live in Houston,
Texas where he also competed with an Offy powered midget.

Below is Barry sitting in his original number 44 that he drove in early visits to Waiwakaiho in 1954/55 season. This car is now owned by Wayne Paul who is standing behind the car. The pedal car is painted to match the midget.

Below is a new addition to our club fleet. (December 2005) It's the famous Sherlock (Shock) Holmes  V8-60 car built here in New Plymouth in 1954. It had been rescued from Brisbane in Australia. The photo on left (below the #44 car) shows the group who built and maintained it in the 1954  to 1956 period and includes on far left, Jake De Waard who built the live rear end and transmission.
Three Holmes brothers are in the group and all unfortunately are no longer with us. Jack with white hat, Sherlock on his right and Peter on his left. The coloured photo directly below shows the condition we purchased it in. The bonnet is the main item we need to replace to get it back to near original but there were many other details changed in the intervening 50 years!.

Update--April 2008.  Most of the questionable workmanship of previous owners is now corrected and the car will be completed later this year.  It will look more like the photo at left below which is as it appeared for the Australasian Test Series in Christchurch in 1954.
Update--July 2009 and the car is finished and has had several runs. Looks and sounds great in its original black with gold stripes.  (See the group photo lower down showing it running at Waiwakaiho after it was sold by Sherlock.

Below we have three photo's supplied by Roger Myers daughter Donna.   Left to right they are Roger Meyers at Western Springs practice. Middle is Roger in 73 and Ron Ross? in 74.   Third photo of car #8 is Vince Produrgiel, Mexico midget champion from USA at the Springs in 1939. 

This group photo is Waiwakaiho Speedway Easter Monday 1957. It is a hand coloured photo. Left to right are Bill Taylor #8, Doug McCabe #98, Barry Handlin #44, Peter Gendall in the George Amor #10 followed by Ivan Ramsden in the ex Shock Holmes V8-60 #91 (See above) and Trevor Hunter in #38. 44, 91 and 38 were visiting from Auckland for the popular Saturday night and Monday Easter meetings. Sunday racing was a no-no in those days.

The picture below is of a FRONT DRIVE midget, which admittedly never raced but was built in 1949/50 to race at the Brixton and Waiwakaiho tracks in New Plymouth. Built by Bernie Bryan it featured a Jeep front axle, Austin Seven engine mounted back to front and A7 front axle at the rear. Photo at lower left is same car registered for road use after the owner decided speedway was a little too rough and expensive.

Two earlier front drive midgets were built and both ran in 1935 at opposite ends of the North Island. Len Southward of the 'Southwards' motor museum fame built the one shown with no body and the other was built by the driver George Smith and a friend Tom Sheehan. The Southward car raced in the first "NZ Championship" at Kilbirnie, which was never recognised as such. The Smith / Sheehan car was named Tom Thumb but never raced seriously although it is shown on the banking at Western Springs. They were both powered by Harley Davidson twin motors.

Return to top