TRIBUTE TO BRUCE MCLAREN

Tribute to Bruce McLaren

On the 50th anniversary of the death of motorsport legend Bruce McLaren, occasional Auto Action contributor and hardcore motorsport fan Geoff Harris, who originally hails from Longford in Tasmania, shared some of his personal thoughts on his memories of his boyhood hero.

It’s 50 years today since the death of Bruce McLaren.

Having overcome Perthes disease as a boy in New Zealand, he had won a Formula 1 Grand Prix by age 22, started a team and won in F1 with it, built sports cars that dominated the CanAm series in North America, had just completed the first McLaren for the Indianapolis 500 and had a road car project in the pipeline.

He’d also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Ford in 1966, breaking Ferrari’s stranglehold on that classic.

Phenomenal achievements in a life of fewer than 33 years, before the advantages of computers and mobile phones.

McLaren (pictured above in the cockpit talking to Jack Brabham, having just clinched the Tasman Series at Longford, Tasmania, in 1964), remains a huge hero to the kid in the photo.

Hopefully the team that still bears the McLaren name, the second most successful in F1 history, can regain its former glory with Daniel Ricciardo aboard from next year.

The Engineering department of the University of Auckland also paid tribute

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