Photo: Bill Stone's 1966 Mallock Mk6BTwo of motor racing's top engineers and designers - who between them have penned countless Formula One, Indy car racers as well as hundreds of other single seat racing cars are all set to honour one of their heroes with a trip to race in January's New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing celebrating Chris Amon.
Former head of super successful racing marque Reynard, Adrian Reynard and friend Malcolm Oastler - who designed Formula One cars for BAR and Jaguar - will race former colleague Bill Stone's 1966 Mallock Mk6B. Oastler will race at the first weekend of the Festival on January 21-23 with Reynard making a rare appearance in competition in the same car the following weekend. It will be as much a re-union of old friends as anything else, as Reynard explained.
"I met Bill around 1971 when I was a student and president of my college car club. I wrote to March Engineering where he was production manager and he enthusiastically invited us to look round March. We clicked. Bill advised me on my first entry into Formula Ford and a couple of years later when I finished college we set up business together as Sabre Automotive making race car parts and constructing the first Reynard car."
Reynard Racing Cars went on to be one of the iconic motor racing brands in the seventies, eighties and nineties. The company made Formula Ford, Formula Three, Formula 3000, Formula Holden, Formula Pacific and Indycar racers and had the unique distinction - right up until its first F1 race - of winning first time out in every new category they took on.
"Bill was the mainstay of the company whilst I remained working for British Leyland and then Hawke Racing Cars," added Reynard.
"Together we built Reynard racing cars as kits during 1975, 1976 and 1977 and this launched the marque successfully. Bill supervised about 20 staff at a small workshop in Bicester where we also made sub-contracted parts for other manufacturers like March, Chevron and of course Mallock.
"This was how we gained an introduction to the Mallock family. Bill returned to New Zealand around 1978 and I became full time. Sabre's name was changed to Reynard Racing Cars about then too."
Oastler was an early stage employee and over the years helped Reynard achieve its unique win-first-time-out reputation. Oastler was responsible for many winning designs at Reynard in racing categories such as Formula Ford, Formula Ford 2000, Formula 3000 and IndyCar.
In 1998 he was seconded to the newly formed BAR team in a chief designer role. As such he was responsible for all design and enhancement work done on the 1999 BAR 01 car. BAR was founded on the remains of the Tyrrell F1 team and actually competed under the Tyrrell name for the 1998 season. During the 1999 season Oastler was promoted to the role of technical director. In 2001 he joined Jaguar Racing and worked on their upcoming R4 chassis for the 2002 season, and was named Jaguar's chief engineer for 2003 and 2004.
Between the two of them, Reynard and Oastler have worked with many of the sport's top drivers over the years, including Rubens Barrichello, Eddie Irvine, Jacques Villeneuve and Mauricio Gugelmin to name but a small few. Their driving careers meanwhile have been largely confined to lower level racing cars, though Reynard did compete as high as Formula Pacific, and in New Zealand.
"It was the 1980/81 series and we did four races in Formula Pacific in a Cuda chassis provided by Bill. We finished fifth in the championship," recalled Reynard. It was the ace designer's last tilt at a full championship and he has raced only very occasionally and sporadically since.
Both Oastler and Reynard are looking forward to their reunion with Bill Stone and driving Bill’s car at the NZ Festival of Motor Racing celebrating Chris Amon.
