HGNA Competitor Profile: Jerry Lenstra

We’re taking advantage of the break in racing to get to know our committee and competitors a little better, and recently caught up with Jerry Lenstra to learn a little of his story. Enjoy!

With thanks to Jerry & Mark Lenstra

Jerry Lenstra, Ford Escort Twin Cam

My interest in cars began back in 1962, when a school mate and I purchased a 1927 A model Ford for $2. Living on a small farm just out of Windsor, this made a great paddock basher and many weekends were spent ripping the mud guards and exhaust off to give it the hot rod feel.

Two years later, while in the last year of high school, we purchased a 1934 V8 Coupe, complete with three months of rego from the metal work teacher. Driving to school instead of catching the bus was cool.

This quickly turned into a faster paddock basher, which went well until the day we found a sump in the back paddock that we didn't know about. We were four in the front seat. The driver finished with a black eye after hitting the steering wheel, I knocked two teeth out on the dash and another was knocked unconscious after hitting the open glove box lid.

Adult intervention followed, and that was the end of paddock bashing!

My first road car was a Mini Deluxe and with it, I joined the Southern Cross Car Club doing hill climbs, rallies, motorkhanas and lap dashes. I then I found a Cooper S in a wrecker’s yard and used it to compete in Oran Park & Amaroo club lap dash events.

With my interest in motor racing developing quickly, I became a CAMS scrutineer and spent many years at the old circuits including Amaroo Park, Warwick Farm and Bathurst. It was at Warwick Farm that I met up with Harry Firth, who told me about this NEW car they were planning for Bathurst. Part of his campaign was to make sure the model had the necessary 250 sales required for homologation.

In late 1970, not having seen the car nor what colours were available, I took delivery of a brand-new Plum Dinger Purple Holden Torana GTR XU1. This made a brilliant road car and after getting a logbook, I entered it in some series production races, competing at Oran Park and Warwick Farm.

In the late seventies I started a family, bought a house and stepped away from all motor sport to take care of those commitments. It would be some decades later, in 2001 when, on a whim, I went out to Sydney’s Eastern Creek Raceway to watch the historic touring cars perform. The atmosphere in the pits was just so friendly and the racing so good I had to get into racing again.

But what car to race?

I considered all of the usual options such as a Mini, Mustangs, EH Holden, Cortina, Torana etc, but wanted something different - something that stood out. And that’s where the idea for a Hillman Imp first arose.

Imps were a familiar sight in mid-sixties road racing, though success eluded them when competing against the Mini Copper S. To me they seemed fun, different and I believed they could be competitive in the historic scene.

A year later, in around 2002, I found an Imp in Melbourne and started to put it through an extensive development program. The car was built to the Nb class rule book.

When the car first hit the track, it created a considerable amount of interest. I’m sure that no one expected an Imp to be able to run competitively. However, I found that it could run in the mid-pack, especially on the smaller circuits.

With the handling concept proved and the help of Graham Russell, we went deeper into development mode. After a couple of years of constant improvements, we were able to extract 120bhp out of the 1040cc engine. When racing at Bathurst, the car would push 11,000rpm down Conrod Straight, though 9000-9500rpm was the limit generally adhered to.

Such was its speed and agility that the Hillman became universally known as the “Fastest Imp in Australia” and I acquired a global reputation for the supply of competition parts as the man who knew how to make Imps run fast. This lead to four or five Imps competing at historic meetings.

By 2010 I started to feel that I’d squeezed as much from the Imp as possible and it was time to move on to the next challenge. The Imp was advertised for sale. While at Phillip Island, I was approached by a local enthusiast to sell Mark’s green Imp. Money was placed into the bank and the car delivered on the way home.

A German engineer and race car collector, who had seen the blue Imp at Philip Island a year earlier while visiting Melbourne to watch the F1 Grand Prix, made contact via email. The engine and running gear was sold to him. The guy had all the mechanicals air freighted to Germany where he had his own Imp body shell. The body and running gear went to Queensland, purchased by an Imp hill climb and club racer.

I then purchased the blue Ford Escort Twin Cam owned by David Noakes, who had started racing a RS1600 Escort. I raced that Escort up and down the east coast of Australia in the Nc class of the historic touring car category.

By accident, I found and purchased a BDA engine and replaced the twin cam engine with that. A little while later, a second Escort was purchased with logbook in Adelaide and the old twin cam engine was fitted to that. After detonating that engine at Lakeside in Queensland, I replaced it with a Cosworth BDA unit. And so Mark’s Escort was born.

Soon the blue Escort will be relegated to the back of the garage or sold. A gleaming new Mk I Escort, yellow and orange has been completed (but may also be sold).