James Howden Ganley (born 24 December 1941 in Hamilton) is a former racing driver from New Zealand. From 1971 to 1974 he participated in 41 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix. He placed 4th twice and scored points 5 times for a total of 10 championship points (only the top 6 places scored points). He also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One races. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born in 1941 in Hamilton, New Zealand, Howden Ganley’s youthful ambitions were to either race yachts or play for the All Blacks New Zealand Rugby team. However, after attending 1955’s New Zealand Grand Prix with his father and brother his ambitions changed and he set his goal on racing in Formula 1. After leaving school, he became a reporter for a newspaper and wrote a column for a magazine and once he obtained his license he raced in local events in his Mother’s Morris Minor. He progressed to a Lotus Eleven but in order to fund his racing ambitions he was doing three jobs, on a construction site during the day, waiting tables in a restaurant at night then pumping gas at weekends. Once he obtained the Lotus he entered it for 1961’s New Zealand GP at Ardmore and he won his class in the sports car race plus a race for New Zealand drivers only. He went on to race for two seasons though in a wet race at Dunedin his car finished up wrapped round a telegraph pole but he was fortunately uninjured.
He eventually moved to the UK and began a career as a mechanic, becoming involved with Mike Moseley, who was planning on producing a road car called the Falcon 515. Once he helped get the car into production he would be allowed to build a lightweight version and race it. A friend, John Muller, helped him and he said the two shared a “bedsit over a railway line, ice on the inside of the window, single light socket hanging from the ceiling. There was a coin-slot meter, but we just plugged everything into that one light socket, because that was free, and put a six-inch nail across the fuse box.” From here he moved on and joined the Gemini Formula Junior team, as a mechanic and driver. He competed in his first single seater race at Goodwood and following this was the Nurburgring (finishing 14th out of 41 starters) but the team later lost their sponsorship and folded.
He then became involved with the Talon F3 car but then came an offer from Bruce McLaren and he became one of the first employees of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing, working alongside Wally Wilmott, Tyler Alexander and Eoin Young in “a shed in New Malden full of earth-moving equipment: dirt floor, work bench, vice, set of welding bottles, a hacksaw and a file.” When asked by Tyler and Wally ‘Why are you here?’, and telling them he was a mechanic, they told him “No you’re not. We don’t know whether you can thread a nut on the end of a bolt. You’re a gopher.”
During this period he worked as crew chief at Drummond Racing for Skip Scott and Peter Revson during the 1966-67 Can-Am season. After purchasing a Brabham BT21, he went on to race for two years in the series then switched to a Chevron B15. Towards the end of 1969’s F3 season, despite starting 22nd on the grid at Brands Hatch, he was 11th by the fourth lap, sixth on lap 14 and on the last lap he was fourth after overtaking Francois Cevert in a Tecno. Going into the last corner while fighting another car for third he put a wheel on the grass, which let F.Cevert to get past. However, although he eventually finished fifth he had broken the circuit’s F3 lap record at an average of exactly 100mph.
His F3 racing then led to F5000 with a McLaren M10B-Chevrolet in 1970 and during the year he finished fourth in Oulton Park’s Gold Cup race and finished second in the series to Peter Gethin. McLaren regularly tested the F5000 car at Goodwood and on one occasion Denny Hulme was also there with the Can-Am car. They needed someone to go in the passenger seat and “take the readings on a manometer or something they had in there. And nobody wanted to get in! Bruce asked me to do it. That was pretty entertaining, Denny right on the limit with me taking the readings. It was fantastic for me, because I totally trusted Denny. I also did a little bit of Can-Am testing in the M8.” Howden described Bruce McLaren as “the greatest leader of men I’ve ever met in my life…he was one of the nicest people, always happy and smiling, even in adversity, cheery, friendly. And he had that amazing ‘can do, will do,’ attitude.”
His F5000 racing brought him to the attention of the BRM F1 team, who signed him for 1971 and he took a strong fifth place in the Italian GP at Monza and fourth at Watkins Glen while in non-championship races he finished second in Oulton Park’s Gold Cup, fourth at Hockenheim and fifth in the Race of Champions. In taking his fifth place at Monza, he was involved in the closest finish in GP history when just 0.61 seconds covered the top five finishers. In the team, he watched the strong competition between Pedro Rodriguez and Jo Siffert “As the new boy I saw their rivalry at first hand. Each was determined to beat the other. If I ever set a faster time than one of them in practice or in a test, the other was always delighted. They each wanted the new kid to put the other down. But they were both just wonderful characters, wonderful blokes.”
Racing in sports cars, he had a third place finish in a Can-Am race at Riverside with a BRM P167 and co-drove (with Paddy Driver and Mike Hailwood) to third at the Kyalami 9 Hours with a Chevron B19. At the end of the year he was awarded the Wolfgang von Trips Memorial Trophy, for the best performance by a newcomer to Grand Prix racing. Continuing with the team the following year his best finish was fourth at the Nurburgring but in sports cars he won Interserie races at Nurburgring and Zeltweg with a BRM P167 Chevrolet plus finished second at Le Mans with François Cevert in a Matra-Simca MS670.
For 1973 he raced Frank Williams Racing’s Iso–Marlboro, with his best results being seventh in Brazil and sixth at Mosport. However, that Canadian GP at Mosport could best be described as one of the most chaotic seen. When the race started, it was raining though it stopped and with the track drying the drivers headed to the pits to change tyres. However a number of drivers had to drive through as there was no space for them to be serviced in the small, busy, pit lane. When Jackie Stewart came in his teammate François Cevert’s car was up on jacks and he was waved through to take another lap. Once they were back racing nobody knew exactly where they were in the scoring and after Francois Cevert and Jody Scheckter crashed a safety car was deployed. But the safety car pulled in front of Howden, who people maintained wasn’t the leader at the time. But nobody has ever been able to say who was the leader plus nobody was really sure who had won, (was it Howden, Jackie Oliver, Peter Revson, Emerson Fittipaldi, Mike Hailwood or James Hunt?). In the end, the race organizers decided Peter Revson had won, with Emerson Fittipaldi second and Jackie Oliver third.
Asked at a later date who actually won, Howden declared it was Emerson Fittipaldi, with himself in third place. He said “My wife (Judy Kondratieff, a U.S. sports car racer who was an SCCA regional champion) was the best keeper of lap charts. It was not unusual for other teams and sometime race organisers to double-check what they had against hers. We went over and over what she had for weeks after that race. There’s no doubt that Emerson won, with Jackie Oliver probably second and me probably third. We thought, initially, that I had won but when we checked and rechecked, I was in third. As it dried up, I saw what was happening in the pits, and I said there was no way I was going in there. My teammate, Tim Schenken, had stopped, but I waited till things calmed down. I eventually made a very good stop, and the pit lane was clear; I was in and out. So, off I go again — but I didn’t know if anyone had gone by me while I was in the pits.’ When he came up behind the safety car, they were telling him he was leading and when it pulled off and continued racing, “Emerson got past and maybe Ollie (Jackie Oliver). But Peter Revson never passed me on the track or while I was in the pits.” His wife Judy took her lap chart to the officials but they weren’t interested and Howden was classed as finishing sixth, and given one point.
In sports cars that year he was usually paired with Derek Bell in the John Wyer Gulf Mirage and took fifth in the 1000Km Zeltweg, fourth at the Watkins Glen 6 Hours plus second in the Spa 1000 Km race (though with Vern Schuppan).
He started 1974 with March in Argentina and Brazil (finishing eighth in Buenos Aires) but then accepted an offer from F1 newcomers Maki. Unfortunately it was a frustrating time as he failed to qualify for the British GP but then sustained serious feet and ankle injuries when the suspension broke during practice at the German GP. He found himself in hospital with Mike Hailwood, who had also crashed, and told how team boss Louis Stanley helped them. He arranged a helicopter flight from the hospital to Cologne then “persuaded British Airways to take two stretchers on a scheduled flight, met us at Heathrow, got us to St Thomas’ Hospital and laid on the great Mr Urquart — the surgeon who’d looked after Stirling Moss and John Surtees after their big accidents. Urquart’s technique for rebuilding bone was, if you can stand the pain you should walk on it. In 16 days I was hobbling around St Thomas.” It would be nine months before he raced again, ironically returning to the Nurburgring with a Mirage GR7 in the 1000Kms race with Tim Schenken and despite Howden not being able to push the brake pedal properly they finished second.
During 1975 he also finished second and third in Interserie races at the Nurburgring and Hockenheim with the Mirage.
He then raced in Can-Am before retiring as a driver in 1978 but in that time he formed Tiga Race Cars with Tim Schenken (the name coming from TIm and GAnley). The company built Formula Fords and Sports 2000s, Formula Atlantics, C Sports for America, two Can-Am cars, 33 Group Cs, some Formula Ks for Mexico and Howden said that “by 1986 we’d delivered over 400 cars.” There were also plans to compete in Formula One but the project did not proceed due to sponsorship withdrawal.
After Tiga he was elected onto the board of the BRDC, and became a director of Silverstone Circuits and Silverstone Estates as well. He was Club Secretary for a period but after leaving the boards they made him a Vice President. Howden also published an autobiography ‘The Road to Monaco: My Life in Motor Racing’ which was described as “an exciting, absorbing and often wryly amusing view of motor racing, from the workshop, the pit wall, the cockpit, and many other vantage points.”
Sadly, Howden’s wife Judy developed cancer and passed away in 2007.
Peter Hooper
Howden Ganley endured a frustrating year driving one of Frank Williams ISO-Marlboro in 1973. His one claim to fame was “leading” the Canadian GP behind the pace car. Unfortunately for Howden, things got even worse in 1974 when the Maki failed and he ended up with serious leg injuries. I always liked the Isos and this drawing was a joy to do.
