The official magazine of Auckland Motorcycle Club, Inc. AUGUST 2020 In this issue: • Dick Smart – Part 3 • AMCC AGM & Prize-Giving (Part 1) • Mount Wellington Update • AMCC Club Series News • Battle Of The Clubs News • And Lots More ….. 1110 Great South Road, PO Box 22362, Otahuhu, Auckland Ph: 276 0880 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 2020 - 2021 Email Phone PATRON Jim Campbell PRESIDENT Greg Percival [email protected] 021 160 3960 VICE PRESIDENT Adam Mitchell [email protected] 021 128 4108 SECRETARY TBA [email protected] TBA TREASURER Paul Garrett [email protected] 021 821 138 MEMBERSHIP MXTiming [email protected] and John Catton CLUB CAPTAIN Adam Mitchell [email protected] 021 128 4108 ROAD RACE John Catton [email protected] COMMITTEE Adam Mitchell 021 128 4108 Mark Wigley 027 250 3237 Paul Garrett 021 821 138 Tim Sibley Jim Manoah 021 536 792 Neal Martin 021 823 508 ROAD RACE MX Timing [email protected] 027 201 1177 SECRETARY Nicole Bol GENERAL Glenn Mettam [email protected] 021 902 849 COMMITTEE Trevor Heaphy 022 647 7899 Philip Kavermann 021 264 8021 Alistair Wilton 027 457 4254 Juniper White 021 040 3819 MINIATURE ROAD David Diprose [email protected] 021 275 0003 RACE CHIEF FLAG Juniper White [email protected] 021 040 3819 MARSHAL NZIGP R EP Trevor Heaphy [email protected] 022 647 7899 MAGAZINE EDITOR Philip Kavermann [email protected] 021 264 8021 & MEDIA MNZ REP Glenn Mettam [email protected] 021 902 849 WEBSITE Johannes Rol [email protected] 021 544 514 Cover Image: 2020 AMCC AGM & Prize-Giving PRESIDENT’S REPORT – AUGUST 2020 Hi Club Members & Supporters, We had a good turn out on July 4 th for the AGM & Prize Giving, where we saw a few changes in the elected positions. We were all sorry to see Paul Stewart stepping down from the President’s role after 4 years at the helm of the Club. He’s not going anywhere though as Paul has to stay on the Executive Committee for at least one year as Immediate Past President, and will continue to be active in the Club as a Steward and as a member of the Apartment Committee. I’m sure you will agree with me that Paul has done an excellent job over those 4 years. Some of the more significant things he lead was the selling of the Club’s shared premises in Ellerslie, the purchase of Apartment 416 at Hampton Downs, the turn-around & recovery of the Club’s finances, 3 years of Motofest, maintaining the Club Series on the big track, as well as supporting the Miniature Road Race members in their activities and fight for the Mt. Wellington Kart Track. Over those 4 years, Paul has tackled many sticky issues, and had good support from the committees and members. I hope you’ll join me and wish Paul a huge thank you the next time you see him! Dennis Sampson (NZ’s most travelled Flag Marshal) has had to stand down as Club Secretary. Dennis is stepping down this year after doing a great job over the last year and a bit. Thanks Dennis!!! Trevor Heaphy has temporarily picked up the Secretary role again, but we’d like someone to step up and take this over please. It’s not a huge role these days with internet & electronic support, so please consider taking this on and let me know if you’re interested. Adam Mitchell has moved into my old Vice President’s role (sorry about the VP’s email inbox ) and has handed over the lead of the Road Race Committee to John Catton. Adam’s staying on in the RRC to assist and maintain continuity. The RRC have changed the format for this year by reducing the number of groups on the track, which will give everyone more track time (yay!). The aim is one practice and 4 race sessions for each group at the Club rounds, starting in September. The other members of the Exec Team have stayed on for another year…Paul Garrett as Treasurer, Phil Kavermann as our PR person, Glen Mettam as MNZ rep, Juniper White as Chief Flag Marshal. Alistair Wilton in the General Committee and Tim Sibley & Jim Manoah again in the Road Race Committee. Phil Kavermann also received a well-deserved life membership appointment for his years of hard work promoting the Club, and nine years of contributions to the Exec Committee. Congrats Phil! A big thank you to them all as without them the Club would cease to exist! So, as in-coming President, what am I going to do to keep the Club moving down the right track? Ha ha, I’m going to delegate the work to everyone else and do nothing! But seriously, the Club has a great team of people with good ideas and plenty of enthusiasm, and is in a good position for the future. We’re making it easier for people to go racing at Hampton Downs and we’ve got some ideas to attract those track day riders looking to push their riding to the next level (you really don’t know what you can achieve until you push yourself in competition with others). We need to find a solution for the Bucket racers who have lost the use of the Mt Wellington track. Nearly all of the club’s top achievers on the racetrack started out on Buckets, and we need this to continue so they can evolve into big track racing. Ken Dobson’s Hyosung & Ninja Cups have been another strong entry point for new riders, and it’s great to see Ken’s support again for this year. These formulas work! Relatively low cost, easy to enter and the minimum number of rules for safe racing that is heaps of fun. If we keep doing the things our Club is good at, I’m sure the sport will grow again in Auckland. If you have any ideas or suggestions please email me at [email protected] and we’ll take them on-board as best we can. Now, get out there and get your bikes ready for the next meeting! See you there Cheers, Greg Percival | AMCC President Classic Motorcycle Mecca: The Britten V1000 – NZ’s two-wheel taonga? In my mind, the late, great John Kenton Britten (1950-1995) will always be linked with the city where he was born – Christchurch. In saying that, though – and, in the absence of any similar facility in his home town – I think it is entirely appropriate, that several examples of the unique motorcycles he – pretty much – single-handedly designed, created with the help of a small and dedicated team, then put out there in the world, are currently on public display at Invercargill’s Classic Motorcycle Mecca museum. John’s legacy goes way beyond the bikes he is arguably best known for, you see. And had he not been so cruelly stricken by cancer in what was his prime – John died aged just 45 in 1995 – Christchurch would indeed have been a very different city to look at and live in, thanks to plans he had been working on, before his death, to breathe new life into the CBD. And that’s to say nothing of his fascination for flight, born of a youthful dalliance with hang gliders, and with his motorcycle business established, he had already moved on – in his head anyway – to turning various ‘flights of fancy’ into some form of at least prototype reality! In saying that, motorcycles, and the riding of same as fast – not to mention as loose – as possible, was his main (I suppose you could call it) creative ‘outlet.’ So – it is again entirely appropriate that it is through them that his legacy is both measured and enshrined. I well remember the day, for instance, when – on early collaborator Mike Brosnan’s prompting – I phoned John for a story I was thinking of putting together for the publication I was editing at the time, New Zealand Motorcycle News , our conversation swinging widely from people we knew in common to the car park he had recently bought to help fund his bike building plans! In theory I had phoned for an update of news that had filtered through to me at the office that John was building a ‘radical, full-fairing bike with wings like Roger Freeth tried.’ John being John though he neatly tuned the conversation away from the bike (which would become Aero-D- Zero) and onto the fact he had pretty much finished work on the house that had consumed his every waking hour when he finally returned from his OE, and that he was no longer making the beautiful art deco brass and stained glass lamps which I remembered him selling out of a postage stamp size stall in the city’s Shades Arcade when I was doing my post-grad journalism course in the city two or three years before. He also mentioned, almost in passing as well, that after years of steadfastly avoiding it he now had a ‘proper job’…..having taken over the reins of the property development and shopping centre leasing company his entrepreneurial father had set up in the 1960s. Classic Motorcycle Mecca museum That explained, as Mike Brosnan, indicated – without, obviously saying as much – how John, who up until that point had been as famous as his (now celebrated) two-wheel predecessor Burt Munro for an aversion for paying for anything he could either make himself, or ‘re-purpose,’ had suddenly started actually buying things he needed… Like? Like the state-of-the-art suspension, brakes and wheels he added to his ‘shopping list’ when he went to Italy to buy building products for the upmarket (but sadly, since demolished after being irreparably damaged in the ChCh earthquakes) Heatherlea Apartment complex, opposite the leafy Hagley Park, his first ‘project’ as I understood it, in his new role as a property developer.