Pat Monaghan of Gore shows skilled driving at Teretonga, Invercargill in 1972........

The Valiant Charger and Falcon GTHO went head to head at Teretonga in Invercargill 1972 which saw three records being broken.  It was exciting watching with Pat Monahagn of Gore and Ron Rutherford of Christchurch fighting it out.

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The Falcon driven by Monaghan and the Valiant by Rutherford worked hard to get through the field and past the leaders.  The crowd was in raptures when Monaghan put the pedal to the metal in the last 100 yards to get past five cars and finish second.
The crowd waited on the time and it was announced at 1.16.8 which beat the previous record of 1.19.2 by Eric Sprague of Timaru.
The crowd had hardly taken in the time when it was announced that Rutherford had set faster times, even though he finished further back in the field.
Mrs Jennifer Hasset in a small powered 998.cc mini was the winner of the handicap race.  Second off the mark she managed to drive a consistent race.
Doug Erskine of Tuatapere was the winner of the four lap race of minis, but almost threw the race when he careered into the elbow bend too fast and spun out.  To his credit he gained control before he could be overtaken.
Dave Brown of Winton, also spun out at the Caltex bend but managed to control the car after trouble with his steering.
Erskine won easily ahead of Greg Elder of Riversdale and Trevor De Clifford of Invercargill. 
Frank Ryan of  Te Anau in his modified saloon dictated the race, a relatively newcomer to racing overcame a poor start.
Ewan Dickie of Gore lost his 1.65 Anglia on the top of the loop and hit a sand embankment.  He damaged his suspension and had to withdraw from the race.
Brian Fleck was driving his 3.3 Prefect and was having car troubles and had to withdraw from the race.
Neil Neilson in a 5.7 ltr Falcon showed some fine driving especially as he is use to being in the motor cycle racing. It was a special effort by him to win ahead of M. Ashmore in his Prefect and Murray Kelman in his Anglia.
Pat Monaghan and Frank Ryan had to do some special driving to avoid a spin out by Lew Heads in his Anglia which saw him stop in the middle of the track.
Brian Fleck won the scratch race for modified saloons easily with Doug Erskine, and Greg Elder second and third respecitvely.
Other drivers to compete were:
I.L. Heads, H. Reynolds, C. Herman, S. Quertier, R. Knowles, R. Dunstan, O. Gray, A. Warnock.
Reference:  Lap Record Broken Three Times.  The Southland Times. December 1972.