Frank Gardner OAM (1 October 1931 – 29 August 2009) was a racing driver from Australia. Born in Sydney, he was best known as a Touring car racing and Sports car racing driver but he was also a top flight open wheeler driver.
He was European F5000 champion, and participated in nine World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 11 July 1964. He scored no championship points. Gardner also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One races and his results included a third placing at the 1965 Mediterranean Grand Prix at the Autodromo di Pergusa in Sicily, fourth in the 1965 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch and third in the 1971 International Gold Cup at Oulton Park.
He participated each year in the open wheeler Tasman Series held in New Zealand and Australia during the European winter, and shared the grids with the likes of Jim Clark, Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
He then decided to try his luck in Britain, leasing out his garage as he wanted to see how it would be and “decided to give it five years” but ended up staying two decades. When he arrived in the UK, he joined Aston Martin and worked as a racing mechanic and was a member of the 1959 Le Mans winning team though “the rates of pay were such that non-smokers only need apply-you couldn’t afford any luxuries-but there were some characters there. I remember one of the fitters, a big bloke called John with a stomach on him, he liked to have 10 minutes’ kip after lunch. That wasn’t allowed, of course, so he’d sleep standing up. He’d push the front of his overalls in the vice on the bench and tighten it up, so he wouldn’t fall on his arse on the concrete floor..I did the Aston bit for just over a year, working on the sports-racers and the Formula 1 cars and going round all the European tracks.” Although he wanted to race he did not have the finances to do it but moved to the Jim Russell Racing School in 1961, where he repaired the Lotus cars that had been damaged and was also allowed to race them. Then, fellow Australian Jack Brabham (whom he had known for some years) contacted him. He was setting up Motor Racing Developments and besides working on the cars, Frank raced the works Formula Junior at weekends, where results included second at Brands Hatch and sixth at Albi. During that year, he was hired to drive a Lotus Elite Mk14 at Le Mans with David Hobbs and they finished eighth, plus first in class and won the Index of Thermal Efficiency. Talking of the single-seaters back then he said how “you had your petrol tanks each side of you. If you needed an extra tank it went behind the dash, over the family jewels. If you hit anything you were likely to be attending your own bloody barbecue.”Over the winter he raced in the Australasian season with Alec Mildren’s Brabham single-seater and Lotus 23 sports-racer. He won at Longford and Lakeside though driving an ex-Moss/Rob Walker Tasman Cooper at Sandown he was at “full chat on the straight and when I hit the brakes something flew off the front of the car and whizzed past my head. It was a chunk of the front right-hand brake disc. The back brakes slowed me a bit, but I had to spin it so I could hit the sleepers arse first.” Frank left Brabham and joined Ian Walker’s team for 1963, preparing the cars as well as racing them, alongside Paul Hawkins. Describing Walker as “a very professional bloke who got off his arse and did a good job” he said that Hawkins was wild and “at Montlhery I was leading and he was second, and he came onto the banking too quick, looped round and came down sideways in front of me. I was looking into his cockpit. I managed to squeeze past behind him and he hit the wall below us. He was never going to die in bed.” In FJunior outings with a Brabham BT6 he won the Chichester Cup at Goodwood (beating Denny Hulme and Richard Atwood) plus recorded fastest lap and was second at the Spring Whizz race at Aintree. He won at Monthlery, ahead of Jo Schlesser and Peter Revson, then finished second at both Monaco (after winning his heat plus took fastest lap) and the Anerley Trophy at Crystal Palace. He took victory from pole (plus fastest lap) at an Aston Martin OC Trophy race at Silverstone, was second at Zolder, third at Solitude and Brands Hatch plus won at Zandvoort and finished third in the Championship, behind Peter Arundell and Denny Hulme. At the Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting Frank was on pole in the sports car race, ahead of Roy Salvadori’s Cooper Monaco and Jim Clark’s Lotus 23B. Describing the BT5 as a good little car, although Clark led in the race he recalled how “I didn’t have any trouble hanging onto him, and Jimmy Clark was certainly a better driver than Frank Gardner. I was just looking for a way to get past when Jimmy spun it, unusual for him. When a car spins in front of you the best way to avoid an accident is to aim for it, because when you get there 19 times out of 20 it won’t be there any more. But this was the one in 20, because he came back across and ended up where he’d started, so I looped it and went down the road upside down. I took the skin off my back and split my arse open on the screen.” The car needed to be sent to Mosport the next day for Graham Hill to drive in a Canadian Sports Car Championship race so Frank hurriedly rebuilt it. The car arrived on time but Hill decided to race the team’s Lotus 23 so Frank drove the Brabham but a problem put him out of the race though he was relieved as he was stuck in the cockpit because an injury sustained from the Oulton Park crash had split open. Racing the team’s Brabham BT5 he was fourth in the Lombank Trophy at Snetterton, sixth at Oulton Park and the Aintree 200 and eighth in the Silverstone International, with his best results second in Silverstone’s Martini Trophy and victory in the Guards Trophy at Brands Hatch. He retired a Lotus Elan at the Tourist Trophy and a Lotus Elite at Le Mans alongside John Coundley though in November he and Bob Olthoff were second in the Kyalami 9 Hours with John Willment’s Shelby Cobra. December saw him in Nassau with a Shelby Cobra and he was twelfth in the Governor’s Trophy, eighth in the Nassau Classic and seventh in the Nassau Trophy. Frank and Bob Olthoff also contested the South African Springbok Series with a Willment Cobra though at one race the car crashed heavily. With less than an hour remaining, “Olthoff didn’t come round. He’d jumped off the road, the Cobra was upside down in the boonies and he was in the ambulance on his way to hospital. Well, I walked out there in the dark and I rustled up some locals and we heaved it back onto its wheels and I fired it up. It was the other side of a big ditch so we pulled down some fence posts to make ramps to clear the ditch. I borrowed a crash hat from a passing motorcyclist and I drove it back around to the finish line, wheels pointing everywhere, broken windscreen, leaking and smoking and steaming, and waited for the race to finish. The David Piper/Tony Maggs Ferrari came round to win, and I chugged it across the line to finish second.”
In 1964 he was signed by John Willment and contested F2 with a Lotus and a Brabham, the British Saloon Car Championship in a Ford Cortina Lotus plus sportscar races in a Shelby Cobra. The Willment team decided to build their own version of the Daytona Coupe, after being turned down by Shelby. However, John Olsen (who had been badly burned in the first Coupe’s outing at Daytona) was now working at Willment and a set of Daytona Coupe plans was sent to England and with John Ohlsen’s experience a new body buck was constructed and Frank did the re-engineering of the new version. His year had started back home and he would go on to become a regular in the Tasman Series. Racing Alec Mildren’s Brabham BT6, in February he was tenth in the Australian GP, thirteenth at Warwick Farm and fourth at Lakeside then the following month was ninth in the South Pacific Trophy at Longford. Back in Europe, he contested F2 with a Lotus 22 for his first two races, taking third at the Preis von Wien at Aspern Airfield and switching to a Brabham BT10 results included second at the Gran Premio di Pergusa and Snetterton’s Vanwall Trophy (plus fastest lap), fourth at Avus and fifth at a British Eagle F2 Trophy at Brands Hatch. July saw him on the grid for the British GP at Brands Hatch but at the start, Jo Siffert had to swerve to avoid a stranded Chris Amon but he ran into Frank, who was then out from his F1 debut with heavy front end damage. Teamed with Jack Sears in the Cortina, the pair were tenth at the Brands Hatch 6 Hours and racing in the British Saloon Car Championship, Frank was third at Crystal Palace, fourth at Goodwood plus fifth at Snetterton and Aintree. He was fifth with an Elva Mk V11 at Brands Hatch and took two victories with the Cobra at a Silverstone meeting in April plus driving Team Elite’s Brabham BT8 he won the Anerley Trophy at Crystal Palace and was fourth in the Autosport 3 Hours at Snetterton.
He contested his sixth and final Tasman series with Alec Mildren through January and February, racing the Alfa Romeo powered Mildren Mono. The seven-race schedule began with four races in New Zealand, where he retired at the New Zealand Grand Prix and Lady Wigram though was third and fourth at the Levin and Teretonga Internationals. The series moved across to Australia for the final three rounds and though he retired in the Australian GP at Lakeside he was third in the Warwick Farm International and fourth at the final race at Sandown. Then followed a drive with Alan Mann’s Ford F3L P68 at Brand Hatch’s BOAC 500 but he retired due to oil pressure problems while a drive shaft problem on lap 42 ended his Le Mans run alongside Malcolm Guthrie in the GT40. Later in the year he drove in the LA Times GP Can-Am race at Riverside, with the car listed as an Open Sports Ford, and Frank ran as high as seventh with the 7 litre car before suspension failure ended his race. In one shared Ford Escort drive he finished seventeenth with Tom Belso at the 6 Hour Brands Hatch. In Lola T70 Mk.3B drives for Sid Taylor he won the Preis von Tirol at Innsbruck and was fifth teamed with Andrea de Adamich at the Monza 1000km plus finished second with a Lola T142 in a Brands Hatch F5000 race. In Lola T70 drives with Mike de Udy they were second in the 6 Hours Vila Real and twentieth at the Imola 500km and at the end of year driving a Grand Bahama Racing entered car they won the 3 Hour Cape Town and Lourenço Marques races and were second in the 3 Hour Bulawayo. Racing solo in the Grand Bahama T70 Frank was second in the Kodak Trophy at Thruxton and won Oulton Park’s Gold Cup. Porsche’s Huschke von Hanstein contacted Frank concerning a drive in their new 917 but he initially wasn’t keen so suggested other drivers; “What about Jo Siffert?-He’s in the hospital”, “Brian Redman?-He’s in the hospital”, Rico Steinemann?-He’s in the hospital too.” He eventually agreed to race it though later admitted “I got caught between greed and common sense..It was a bloody awful thing.” Requesting David Piper as his co driver for the race at the Nurburgring, as he was “a racer who would keep the car on the road” but when they arrived there Piper “did one lap, came in and said that he was too young to die!” Recalling the 917 he stated “the throttle was terrible, because they had the leverages all wrong and you were busy trying to balance the power curve and not getting on the power too quick coming out of corners. The chassis flexed so much they filled the tubes with helium and rigged up a pressure gauge so that if the gauge dropped you knew the chassis had cracked. They said if the gauge went down, I was to drive it back to the pits. Bugger that, I said; if the gauge drops, I park it.” He felt it had too much power for its narrow tyres;”the computer said they would be man enough for the job but the bloody computer wasn’t strapped into the hot seat guiding this thing around the Eifel mountains.” They qualified tenth and finished a brave eighth, despite a hailstorm in the middle of the race, and when asked later why his time was slower on that part of the lap than the one before, replied “Because, Huschke, on that part of that lap I frightened myself fartless.” He described the car as having “no power below 5000 rpm but over the next 1500 rpm you found another 350 bhp. I drove it like that throughout the Nurburgring 1000 Kilometres. It poured down all the way through the race and it was snapping sideways and aquaplaning all over the place. The 917 became one of the finest racing cars in the world but the early car could spring a boxful of surprises on you. You had to stay below the surprise package if you wanted to get it home and pick up the money…I didn’t want to be the quickest bloke in motor racing, just the oldest. And that car was certainly going to interfere with those plans.” He admitted that driving the 917 on the Nurburgring was one of the few times that he had been really scared.
He began a strong working relationship in 1970 with Lola Cars founder Eric Broadley and a young engineer named Patrick Head, driving their T190 in F5000. He initially struggled with the car but after modifying it extensively, by mid-season he took two wins. His first races with the T190 came in April where he was third at Zandvoort and eighth in the Silverstone International then in May was seventh at Brands Hatch. In June he had two consecutive third place results at Mondello Park (and fastest lap) and Silverstone plus eighth at Monza. August saw his two consecutive victories at Thruxton (from pole pole and fastest lap) and Silverstone (plus pole and fastest lap) and ninth at Oulton Park. In the following month there were two consecutive second place finishes at Hockenheim (from pole) and Oulton Park (from pole plus fastest lap) and thirteenth at the final round at Brands Hatch to finish third in the points to Peter Gethin and Howden Ganley. Racing Motor Racing Development’s Ford Mustang, he was third in the Tourist Trophy (plus fastest lap) and in four 3 Hour races at the end of of year with Mike de Udy they were fourth at Lourenço Marques, ninth at Cape Town and Roy Hesketh and thirteenth at Bulawayo. After finishing third with the Escort the previous season, Frank adapted an ex-Trans Am Mustang and won several races in the Saloon Car Championship but finished second to Bill McGovern’s Hillman Imp.
1971 started in South Africa in early January at the 3 Hour Goldfields and he de Udy were sixth with Motor Racing Research’s Mustang. Later in the month he contested the Tasman Series, though now with Malcom Guthrie’s Lola T192, where he was fourth in the Lady Wigram Trophy then in February won the Warwick Farm International 100 (plus fastest lap) and was second in the final race at Surfers Paradise. Back in Europe, he would take the F5000 title after an amazing season, starting with Lola’s T192 then in August when the new T300 arrived, and recalled how “Formula 5000 had good people at the time..You knew you had to get your arse into gear when the flag dropped.” His first three races saw victories at Snetterton and Mondello Park plus second at Brands Hatch which was followed by victory at Castle Combe, third at Mallory Park then in consecutive races he was second at Mallory Park, third at Thruxton (from pole plus fastest lap) and second at Silverstone. He was third at Oulton Park then in September won at Hockenheim (from pole plus fastest lap), beating Fittipaldi’s lotus 56B turbine; at the same meeting he also contested the supporting touring car and sportscar races and then drove the team’s truck home! He then won at Oulton Park (from pole) and was second (and fastest lap) at the final race at Brands Hatch and he beat Mike Hailwood’s Surtees TS8 to the title, by six wins and ninety five points to Hailwood’s four wins and fifty eight points. In two non-championship outings for Alec Mildren he was tenth at the International Trophy in a T192 and third with a T300 at the International Gold Cup. He entered a Can Am race at Brained with a Lola T70 Mk.3B though did not start while in muscle car outings he took victory at a DARM event at Hockenheim with an SCA Freight Mustang though did not finish at the 4 Hour Jarama with the team’s Camaro. Recalling the drives he said how they were two entirely different cars, “in the wet the Mustang was a delight, the Camaro was a bloody handful. But provided you had enough common sense to say, well, that’s about it, then all was well.”
The Tasman and South African Springbok campaigns continued in 1972, and Frank had a lot of success in South Africa in Mike de Udy’s Lola T70s. He campaigned a works Lola T300 in the Tasman Series and won the season opening New Zealand GP at Pukekohe (plus took fastest lap) but damaged his back in an accident the next week at Levin, when his engine cut out mid-corner and he went off track. This sidelined him until the fifth round at Surfers Paradise, where he finished second then took second in consecutive rounds at Warwick Farm and the Australian GP at Sandown but decided these would be his final single seater drives. In Camaro outings, there was a second place result with a Jagermeister car at Diepholz but despite starting on pole and taking fastest lap with an SCA Freight car at the Tourist Trophy he retired due to engine problems. Contesting the Wiggins Teape Paperchase Saloon Car Championship with the SCA Camaro Z28 he won at Thruxton, Silverstone, Mallory Park, Oulton Park (twice) and Brands Hatch (three times) and finished third in the series. At the final round at Brands Hatch, he had also entered a F5000 race at the meeting (his only F5000 drive that year) and was third with the T300 but though he entered the following day’s non-championship Victory Race, and qualified thirteenth, he did not start.
In 1973, he wrestled the powerful SCA Freight Camaro to his third title after several hard-earned wins at Silverstone, Ingliston and two victories each at Brands Hatch and Thruxton. At the final round at Brands Hatch, he was leading but a back marker inadvertently got in his way and caused him to spin but though he finished third, his second in class assured him of the championship plus he also took the Tarmac title. He retired the car at September’s Tourist Trophy plus in two Chevrolet Firenze Springbok Series drives in November with Basil van Rooyen at Cape Town and the 9 Hour Kyalami.
He shared the SCA Camaro with Brian Muir in the following year’s European Touring Car Championship but though they set fast practise times through the season, it proved a frustrating period. They retired at the three drives at Salzburgring, Vallelunga and Zandvoort plus he did not finish in a solo drive at Diepholz. He then decided to return to Australia, with wife Gloria and children Steve and Kristin, and settled on the Gold Coast in Queensland. He did not quit racing though and in 1975 was second at Bathurst, sharing a Holden Torana LH with Bob Morris. He went on to contest the 1976 Australian Sports Sedan Championships in his own highly modified Chevrolet Corvair and, despite only contesting three rounds, finished second in the standings. The car had made its debut at the third round at Oran Park in August but he didn’t race for points as the scrutineers declared its rear-guard radiator ducting was illegal but it was allowed to run with a temporary logbook in order that the large crowd of fans could see it. He missed the following round while the car was changed to comply with the regulations but then won the final three rounds at Adelaide International, Symmons Plains and Calder. In 1977 he took the title after winning five of the seven Australian Championship rounds with his Corvair then focused on team management. His last competitive drive was as co-driver in 1983 with Jim Richards at Bathurst but after qualifying fourth with the JPS BMW 635 CSi, the race proved to be a disaster for the team. The car pitted on lap three after suddenly slowing, where metal filings were found in the fuel system, and the car only did several more laps before being retired.
By the 1980’s he was running the BMW factory team in the Australian Touring Car Championship and Jim Richards won the championship in both 1985 and 1987. Besides being team manager he was also the main test driver for JPS as the team was based in Sydney (and did almost all of its testing at Amaroo Park). Their drivers Richards and, from 1984, Longhurst lived in Melbourne and on the Gold Coast and it is estimated that Frank completed more time driving the 635 CSis and M3s than either driver; Richards stated “I drove for him from 1982 to 1987 and they were probably best years of my career. Frank and Gloria lived in Sydney and I lived in Melbourne. Frank tested and prepared the cars and I just turned up and raced.” Frank switched to Ford in 1988 and his drivers, Tony Longhurst and Thomas Mezera, won the Bathurst 1000 in the Ford Sierra Turbo. He returned to BMW in 1991 and during the Super Touring era his drivers won the title three times between them, in 1994, 1995 and 1997 (though at 1992’s Bathurst, Denny Hulme suffered a fatal heart attack while driving one of Frank’s cars) before he finally called time on his motor sport career. In 1980, his celebrated ‘Drive to Survive’ book on safe driving was published while in 1973 he had collaborated with Castrol Oils to produce his ‘Racing Drivers Manual’, which was a mixture of advice for prospective racing drivers plus recollections of his early life and racing experiences. His contribution to road safety saw decades of lobbying for higher driving standards and he established a Performance Driving Centre in 1990. For many years he drove the safety car at the Australian GP plus was awarded the Order of Australia in 1994 for his services to motor racing and received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000.
Frank sadly passed away at home at Mermaid Waters in Queensland on the 29th August 2009 following a long battle with illness associated with his racing and engineering career. He had been in Sydney hospital but demanded to be checked out and to be taken to his home the Gold Coast, where he died shortly after arriving and his funeral was held on the 4th September at Sacred Heart Church in Clear Island Waters, Queensland. Long-time friend Sir Jack Brabham described him as “one of motor racing’s born characters, whose colourful turns of phrase would have audiences in hysterics…Although much of his language was completely unprintable, I’d defy anyone not to laugh. He could be hilarious.” He stated “he could drive anything” while Vic Elford said after a race in identical cars that Frank had given him “an hour’s masterclass in how to keep an aggressive driver behind”. A larger than life character, Frank was not a man to suffer fools and had a keen nose for pretentiousness in others, calling it his bullshit filter. On himself, he said “It’s not that I am better than these people, it’s just that experience allows you to spot the warning signals earlier” but after one race declared “I drove like an old woman.” He played down his achievements and as for his misfortunes, he was philosophical and stated “if you want to tell hard luck stories, get yourself a Labrador. They’re good listeners” and did not dwell too much on the past as “the only thing you get when you look over your shoulder is a stiff neck”. He stated “We’d gone to so many funerals when I was racing, the Jimmy Clarks, the Mike Spences, the Jo Sifferts, the Jo Bonniers. I competed in quite a few cars along the way, but I never wanted to be the fastest racing driver of all time. I just wanted to be the oldest..Earning big money is one thing, being around to spend it is another…But the people I worked with-Eric Broadley, Alan Mann, Patrick Head, Alan Smith on engines, Mike Hewland on gearboxes-they were what made it worthwhile. They were a different breed.”
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Further to the part about Frank Gardner and the Porsche 917, when he was contacted by Huschke von Hanstein to drive it, he initially wasn’t keen so suggested other drivers.
“What about Jo Siffert?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“Brian Redman?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“Rico Steinemann?”
“He’s in the hospital too.”
As for the car itself, he described it as ‘a bloody awful thing. At about 5000rpm it had 300 horsepower and then over the next 1000rpm it jumped another 200 horsepower. The throttle was terrible, because they had the leverages all wrong and you were busy trying to balance the power curve and not getting on the power too quick coming out of corners. The chassis flexed so much they filled the tubes with helium and rigged up a pressure gauge so that if the gauge dropped you knew the chassis had cracked. They said if the gauge went down he was to drive it back to the pits but he said, ‘if the gauge drops I park it.’
The 917 became one of the finest racing cars in the world, but the early car could spring a boxful of surprises on you. You had to stay below the surprise package if you wanted to get it home and pick up the money.
