The Leadfoot Festival can throw up some contrasts. Never more so than late on a Sunday afternoon, writes Peter Donaldson.
Bill Buckley was winding down after completing his last run of the weekend on his thundering brute of an Egli-Vincent replica motorcycle.
He'd been competing in the annual Leadfoot Festival hillclimb, held on Kiwi motorsport legend Rod Millen's 1.6km driveway at Hahei, on the Coromandel.
The New Zealand IT entrepreneur and Western Springs promoter was with a group of fellow riders and helpers, enjoying a beer in the cool shade of the riders' marquee.
Todd Sutherland, from KiwiRider magazine, noted the Victorian-clothed youth who'd been riding about the pits on a penny-farthing most of the weekend and thought he'd make a great contrast photo with the brace of Yamaha TZ grand prix two-stroke racers he and real estate man Mike Pero had ridden earlier.
He called him over and took a couple of shots.
Something about the penny farthing caught Buckley's eye and he eased himself out of his seat and began asking questions. A few more people joined the conversation.
It turns out the former Howick College Trades Academy pupil had begun work on the bike after he'd finished his course projects. Something to do to fill out his final year at school, he said.
Now into his second year as an engineering apprentice, the teen explained how he'd built everything from scratch. Everything.
The group nodded and expressed their approval of the superb detail and craftsmanship.
Buckley, the founder of Buckley Systems Ltd, the world's leading supplier of electromagnets used in the manufacture of silicon chips, quietly asked more questions, obviously impressed with the youth's confident and often highly technical replies.
Eventually, the group dispersed leaving just the 70-something hard-nosed businessman and the fresh-faced cycle rider together.‘‘I bet he's offering him a job,'' joked one of Buckley's employees, ‘‘and he'll probably get the keys to the rooms I'm not allowed in.''Eventually, the conversation ended and Buckley ambled back to his chair. He didn't say much. He never does.‘‘I know his dad,'' Buckley smiled.
Louis McNair is the son of Robert McNair, who was at Leadfoot racing his much-admired own-build special, based on a pre-World War 2 Riley 9 and powered by a De Havilland Tiger Moth engine.
And Louis' grandfather is Wallace McNair, the man responsible for restoring the world's oldest grand prix race car, the 1906 Darracq, driven at Leadfoot by Indycar champion Scott Dixon.
It seems a third generation of one of New Zealand's most respected engineering and aviation families has already made his mark.
