If motor racing trivia were an Olympic sport, and each nation had to be represented by two Formula 1 (F1) drivers, we’d at least get a medal – and probably gold – with Howden Ganley and Chris Amon. Howden’s knowledge of motor racing history is impressive while Chris could back it up, especially with questions on the Indianapolis 500. The Amon interest in motor sport started while at Huntley School in Marton, when he borrowed the Australian Modern Motor magazine of one of his mates, as he told me as I was putting the finishing touches on Eoin Young’s Forza Amon! “There was a report on the 1956 French Grand Prix at Reims won by Peter Collins in a V8 Lancia-Ferrari. I was really fascinated by it and read it over and over – suddenly I had an interest in motor racing!”
I have been encouraged to mark Chris’s 80th birthday with some of the lesser-known achievements of his life and, in thinking about this, it may come as a surprise that it was to IndyCar racing that my mind first went. He enjoyed success in road racing open-wheelers, both sports and touring cars, but his brief brushes with ‘Champ cars’ were forgettable, although I never tired of hearing the resultant stories. The best one came from his first experience with the Indy scene at the end of 1966, when a one-off race was arranged at the Mount Fuji circuit in Japan. Four spots were available to ‘Europeans’, and Chris was selected to complete a quartet
