Rotary racing Kiwi style

Both Rod Millen and Ron Kendall were rotary racing kings, emanating from the North Shore of Auckland, where I grew up. And the ultimate rotary techno guru was Bill Shiells, who developed the engine into a rocket ship while working out of Gulf Mazda in Takapuna from 1969, and later in his own business, Rotorsport. He began to extract some phenomenal horsepower from the enigmatic rotary engine. Bill was one of the first to race the Mazda RX-2 Coupé in 1971 and achieved immediate success, causing others to sit up and take notice, particularly the North Shore’s racing elite. They included Robbie Francevic, Rod Millen, Ron Kendall, John Woolf, John Le Feuvre, and Rex Findlay.

This all came about as a result of Bill working on Frank Radisich’s McLaren M10A Formula 5000 single seater in Sydney, during the 1971 Tasman Championship series. He operated out of a workshop there, with NSU Ro80 and Mazda rotary franchises. Bill got the opportunity to test drive a Mazda Capella RX-2 Rotary demonstrator (there were hardly any Mazda rotaries in NZ at this time) and was blown away by the performance. He had a specialist tuning background with Jaguar engines, so his