In attesa del rilascio, per il sempre mitico Grand Prix Legends, del nuovo Tasman Series Mod, è già possibile scaricare il primo circuito extra dedicato alla omonima serie disputata fra il 1964 ed il 1969: click qui per il tracciato di Wigram Airfield, mentre consultate il sito ufficiale per tutti i dettagli sul progetto.
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The GPL Tasman Mod team are proud to announce the release of Wigram Airfield for GPL.
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Wigram Airfield for Grand Prix Legends
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Standard Version 1.00
By Robert Hunter and the GPL Tasman Mod Project Team
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History of Wigram
Throughout 1948 the Vintage Car Club and the Canterbury Car Club planned the first New Zealand Championship Road Race on closed public highways in the Waimairi County near Harewood. It appeared to be a recipe for success with plenty of driver and public interest meaning good crowds for what would be the nation's first all sealed circuit race.
All their careful organisation was nearly undone only 10 days before the event when police took action deeming illegal the closure of roads by county officials. Driver Pat Hoare and Prime Minister Peter Fraser are credited with saving the day when Fraser offered the use of the RNZAF at Wigram airfield near Christchurch for the formula libre race.
So New Zealand's first road race became a 2.1 mile (3 km) temporary circuit laid out using straw bales and water filled drums on the abrasive runways of an operational air force base featuring a fast section past the hangers and control tower across suspension tearing drains and a 0.8 mile (1.3 km) straight culminating in a tight elbow connected with a few taxiway curves and bumps.
Morrie Proctor in a Riley 9 is recorded as the winner of the first Lady Wigram Trophy, held on a hot fine February day in front of 30,000 spectators, completing 50 laps (105.8 miles) in 1hr 35m 56s. Sybill Lupp driving an MG , a woman somewhat against the grain of motor racing culture, came in fifth beating a then unknown Aucklander, Ron Roycroft.
The following year organisation was taken over by the newly formed Motor Racing Club and soon became an international event , part of a series of races throughout New Zealand attracting the off season interest of drivers such as Stirling Moss in the Rob Walker prepared Lotus 21, Tony Gaze and Peter Whitehead in their Super Squalo Ferrari's. Antipodeans based overseas like McLaren, Hulme, Amon, Brabham, and Gardner would return home to match it with the well prepared locals.
Even the cars taking part in Lady Wigram Trophy races were legendary, the Alfa Romeo Tipo-B P3 that Tazio Nuvolari had driven to victory at Nurburgring against the German Works teams of Mercedes and Auto Union was winning again 15 years later from 1951 to 1953 in the hands of Les Moore and Ron Roycroft .
The NZIGP winning Maserati 250F's of Stirling Moss and Prince Bira saw action again on the runways of Wigram in the hands of talented locals including a young Chris Amon. Unfortunately, although fast, the crowd pleasing 4.5 litre V12 Type 375 blue Ferrari in which Gonzales had scored the Scuderia's first Grand Prix win at Silverstone in 1951 was never reliable enough to take Ron Roycroft to victory.
It was at Wigram in 1960 that Bruce McLaren was offered the technically advanced Ralph Watson engineered Lycoming Special to drive in the race when the engine in McLaren's Cooper expired on the morning of the race. After fitting the racing Dunlops from his Cooper, McLaren drove to a strong fourth with failing brakes in the final stages. Most impressed with the car's ability, Bruce sent the owner, Peter Gill, a set of disc brakes by way of thanks.
By 1963 the NZ international races had evolved into the Tasman Series including 4 races in Australia. The F1 stars and their cars continued to make their way down under. Jochen Rindt, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, and Bruce McLaren added their names to the Lady Wigram Trophy.
In 1964 a loop was included in the course where the chicane formerly was extending the circuit by 0.2 miles, but it proved unpopular with drivers. Why slow up an already fast circuit, one asked rhetorically. At the old chicane there was only one bump, and now there were three, another said. By this time the cars touched 150 m.p.h. down the back straight.
1968 is probably best remembered for the first appearance of the Gold Leaf sponsored team Lotus cars of Colin Chapman and the last appearance of crowd favourite and series winner Jim Clark at Wigram.
Later the Tasman series went to F5000 and from 1971 to 1975 Graham McRae dominated at Wigram in cars he designed and built himself. In 1974 when the race was designated as the New Zealand Grand Prix, McRae said of his pole position he would start from the back of the grid for 1000 dollars and would start five seconds further back for another 1000 dollars. In the race two valve springs broke and McRae`s GM2 retired after 29 laps. He was 17 seconds in front.
Racing for the Lady Wigram trophy continued through various formula until 1994 with more well known names such as Ken Smith, Larry Perkins, Ross Cheever, Paul Radisich and Craig Baird on the trophy, the threat of housing development and lack of quality single seater fields in New Zealand saw the end of Wigram as an international venue.
The final race at Wigram was a crowd less mid week affair to satisfy safety laws for classic racers held early in 2000. Don Grindley recalled the early years when spectators at the hairpin held up a hand, giving the thumbs up for the drivers who braked late, and thumbs down for those who braked early. 'It was the type of track where your mind told you to keep your foot in it, but your body said 'no'!'
Footnote: The Motor Racing Club, custodians of the most prestigious trophy in New Zealand motor racing, the Lady Wigram Trophy, are pleased to announce that they will release the Lady Wigram Trophy for competition by the Toyota Tatuus Racing cars in the 2006 Summer Race event. 'The Toyota Racing Series cars have clearly demonstrated they are worthy to compete for the Lady Wigram Trophy' says Roy Beecroft, Chairman of The Motor Racing Club who for almost 50 years ran the annual Wigram event. 'We look forward to seeing strong grids and top drivers competing at Powerbuilt (Ruapuna) Raceway next year' he says.
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Installation
Unpack all files in the compressed (.zip) folder to your chosen folder.
Double-click the "install" icon.
To install the additional options from the other folders within the zip file, such as alternate mips and removing unwanted objects, copy the mips etc. to the sierra\gpl\tracks\wigram folder.
Deinstallation
Delete the gpl\tracks\wigram directory.
Delete the appropriate [Eventxx] entry in your gpl\season\67season.ini file.
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Acknowledgements / Thanks / Credits
Paryrus/Sierra for original game
Peter Prochazka for Gpltrk
Phil Flack for Trk23dow, Trk23dof, Trk23doz, SRBMan, MIPMan, txt2gtk, GPLAnim and GPL Track Editor (with Paul Hoad)
Klaus Hörbrand for Winmip2
Martin Granberg for GPL Replay Analyser (with Jonas Matton) and GPL Track Installer
Dave Noonan for 3doEd
Christian Wohlfahrt for OneTwo3DO
GPLEA for its track creating tutorials
Wigram circuit history in this readme by Geoff Lewis
Research, period photographs and video and authenticity by Ben Jamieson, Nev Roberts, Barry Thompson, Geoff Lewis, Sandra Knight, David Shaw and David Wright
Track layout, altitudes and trackside objects by Robert Hunter
Track and object textures by Robert Hunter, Geoff Lewis and Brett McCrohan
Horizon textures by Robert Hunter and Barry Thompson, using location photographs by Sandra Knight
Clouds in horizon textures by Simon Stobbart
Additional hanger and building textures kindly supplied by Ian Warren from his version of Wigram Airfield for Microsoft Flight Simulator and modified for use in GPL by Geoff Lewis
Textures for the Lockheed C-130H Hercules kindly supplied by Clive Ryan from his model for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 and modified for use in GPL by Geoff Lewis
Pit personnel, crowd and drivers original textures by Svend Seegert
AI by Klemens Sensen and Nev Roberts
Groove by Ken Murray and Robert Hunter
Groove mip and kind, helpful and supportive advice by Jim Pearson
Programme cover and maps by John Bradley (BAPOM), with the cover based on the real 1968 Wigram programme supplied by Ben Jamieson
Beta testing, feedback and continued support for this project by Ben Jamieson, Nev Roberts, Barry Thompson, Geoff Lewis, David Shaw, David Wright, Brett McCrohan, Neil Lowe, Sandra Knight, Steffen W. and William Campbell and everyone else who has posted encouragement in the various Wigram and Tasman threads on RSC
Online testing by British Racing Enthusiasts And Select Tourists Society
Web hosting for photos and files during this project by and (Ben Jamieson)
And also thank you to anyone else who has inadvertantly been forgotten from this list
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Copyright / Permissions
These files are provided for your personal enjoyment. This track/addon may not, partially, or in full, be posted at any sites other than Tasman-Series.com. () You may link to this download page, but not directly to the files. If you wish to publish updates/addons for this track or to use any of files included in the zip, please obtain our permission before publishing. Please do not publish any updates/addons within the first two weeks after release. THESE FILES MAY NOT BE SOLD FOR PROFIT. They may not be included as part of another program without asking our permission first. This Readme file must always be included.
© Robert Hunter 2006
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Disclaimer
The authors of this package takes no responsibility for its use.
The contained files are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.
This is not a Papyrus/Sierra product.
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The Wigram track download page is here
The track is hosted on the Tasman Series website, please take some time to look around on there and also have a look at some other upcoming GPL Tasman Track projects.
