F5000’s 55th

Before New Zealand’s F5000 drivers start to think about their 2023/24 Tasman Cup Revival Series, five members of the New Zealand Formula 5000 Association will travel to the US in August this year to help their fellow category drivers from the US and around the world celebrate the 55th anniversary of  the founding of the unique stock block, 5-litre, wings and slicks category, arguably more popular today than it was back in the 1970s when it operated as a kind of internationally-acceptable option second only to  Formula 1.

celebrations at Laguna Seca Photo Fast Company/Geoff Ridder Grant Martin (Talon MR1/A ) will be amongst the New Zealanders joining in the F5000

The five-driver group, set to travel to the Laguna Seca Raceway includes Grant Martin (Talon MR1/A), Glenn Richards (Lola T400) Tony Galbraith (Lola T332), Tony Roberts (McLaren M10A ‘high wing’), and Alastair Chalmers (Chevron B32).  They will join 25 of their colleagues on the grid for F5000 races at two of the biggest and most prestigious US motor race meetings, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion on 17-19 August, and the two-day Pre-Reunion meeting the previous weekend.

Coppola, President of the U.S. Formula 5000 Drivers Association, remarked, “2023 is the 55th Anniversary of the beginning of Formula A/F5000 in 1968.  We expect a large contingent of cars that originally raced from 1968 to 1976 and we are particularly thrilled to have more than a dozen cars and racers join us from New Zealand, Australia, and England at the Rolex Motorsport Reunion and other events.”