During unofficial Friday practice a cir-clip came off the gearbox on Harrington's Torana, and the Auckland driver biffed a fence, damaging the Australian car slightly. Bailey percolated the Porsche and decided to use Dunlop Aquajets instead of the narrower Pirellis. The weather was cool but fine for Saturday practice, and Palmer went out in his first session to do a lm 13.5s, improving to lm 12.8s in the second spell. Brocklehurst had the final word by equalling his own production record (set Easter 1971) with a lm 12.Os in the first session, securing pole position.

Francevic, figuring on rain for a winter event, fitted Dunlop SPs to his Falcon in place of the regular Firestone Wide Ovals. Great clouds of tyre smoke came from Francevic's GTHO as he recorded a 1 m 13.4s to complete the front row of the grid. Returning the same time was Harring-ton, while Shiells was best of the Capellas with animpressive1 m14.0s.Both rotary engined cars were the noisiest entrants in the race, most cars running without exhaust systems.

Tim Bailey improved from Im 16s to lm 15.5s which made him sixth fastest, followed by Brickley's Monaro (lm 15.6s), Ken Adamson's Escort TC (Im 15.8s), Men Neil (Capella) with lm 16.Os and Angus Cameron (Monaro 350) on Im 16.2s. Ian Carroll posted Im 19.1s in his Torana GTR and Trevor Parker's Cooper 12755 returned lm 19.5s. Other impressive times were Josh Mahon's Fiat 125 (Im 20.4s), Ron McPhail's Datsun 1600 (Im 21.2s), Don Diggelmann's Datsun 1200 (lm 23s) and Bruce Cork's Simca GT (lm 24.4s).

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Palmer dominated the 133 mile race, leading for 58 of the 100 laps and cutting out the distance in 2hrs 3m 43.3s, Sm 59s faster than his 1970 winning time. The race average increase of 2.Smph, the refuelling pit stop included, indicates the advances being made by production cars, although the GTR XU I must be considered some-thing of a special.

Main opposition for the winner came from Richard Brocklehurst in another Tor-ana GTR XU I. After securing pole posi-tion, Brocklehurst led for 41 laps after Palmer made his pit stop, but lost the lead at the end of the 60th tour when he pitted for his compulsory stop. He event-ually finished second, one lap and 25 seconds behind Palmer.

Third went to the quiet and consistent Porsche 911T of Tim Bailey, and the rotary piston engined Mazda Capellas of Bill Shiells and Merv Neil ran well to fill fourth and fifth positions respectively. There were five price classes, and officials could only give provisional positions for these divisions, and no overall placings. These were accordingly compiled from MOTOR-MAN'S lap chart.

Six supporting events provided a rather mundane spectacle for the crowd weather-ing a chilly wind. Small fields were a feature of these events, the main interest coming from a closely fought Formula Vee race, and a dead-heat for victory between Jim Richards (Escort TC) and Rodger Anderson (BMW 2002 Alpina) in a 4.2 litre touring car handicap event.

An excellent lineup of 43 cars entered the Glenvale 100, but as a maximum field of 30 was permitted by MANZ a certain amount of seeding had to take place during practice. Where there were a number of brand X, the slowest of these was elimin-ated. This was the fairest way of selection, but it did result in one prominent compet-itor, John Murphy in a Torana GTR XU 1, being eliminated.

Several cars failed to arrive. The three Monaro 350s of Jim Richards (the engine still in pieces), Pat Smith and Bruce Allen were scratchings, the Falcon GTHO of Rick Rimmer (the ex Spencer Black car) was damaged in a road accident, and Ralph Emson's Torana GTR XU I scratched be-cause of a bereavement in the Emson fam-ily. This left Robbie Francevic's Falcon GTHO and the three week old Rentokil Porsche 911T of Tim Bailey most promin-ent in the over $4000 class.

In the $3501-$4000 bracket, the inex-pensive XU Is were the likeliest cars of all for outright honours. Four arrived for Palmer, Brocklehurst, Murphy and Roy Harrington. Palmer's Ebbett Motors Torana was running Kieber radials, as used by Bruce Hodgson's Lotus Cortina during part of the Heatway Rally. The Brocklehurst car used Japanese Bridgestone radials, and Harrington had Yokohama radials on his similar machine. Sixteen cars ran on Dun-lop radials (the Porsche using Aquajets which would have given it a wet weather advantage), 12 on a mixture of Firestone F(00 radials, F7 crossplies and Wide Ovals, and two on Reidrubber radials.

Frank Radisich arrived with his new Escort RS1600, but after lengthy discuss-ions with officials and a call to MANZ Steward Fordy Farland, the car was not permitted to start. After the race Alan Blomquist, the clerk of the course, gave no official reason for the decision. With the loose regulations for this production race, the Escort RS1600 should certainly have been allowed to run. Whether or not MANZ have decided to permit BDA four-valve engines'in modified touring car events next season is beside the question. A stand-ard BDA-engined Escort RS1600 was elig-ible for entry as it is a production car. The fact that the car was locally built-up had no bearing on the decision because local regulations permit this and other cars in the race were locally built equivalents of imported cars.

Similarly, homologation did not enter into the decision (although the RS1600 is homologated) because the Glenvale did not require homologation. If it had done, then cars like the Porsche 911 or Fiat 850 Coupe would not qualify. Radisich said he went to considerable trouble to ensure his car was completely authentic, from sus-pension details to exterior badges. We realise that any promoter has the right to refuse an entry, but it is usual to give a ieason. How can New Zealand motorsport ever hope to reach a high standard when these sort of decisions are made?

Ian Carroll's Torana GTR looked most formidable in the $2901-$3500 class, ahead of the Mini Cooper 1275S-types and Dat-sun 1600s. A gaggle of Datsun 1200s dom-inated the $2501-$2900 category, and there were four Minis in the under $2500 bracket. The classes were numbered I to 5, with 5 being the most expensive category.