Denny Hulme joins McLaren in the first Grand Prix in South Africa. Phil Kerr becomes Team Manager.

And then we hired a guy called Denny Hulme who was the world champion for Brabham. The very first race in ’68 was the South African Grand Prix. A guy called Wally Willmott and I were the race team. Phil Kerr was the so-called Team Manager, he’d been brought in as a part of the package with Hulme. Kerr sent the car by sea and then by train to Johannesburg. The car had been on the flat deck of a train and was black with soot. When it got to Johannesburg the train workers had pushed it off the back of the raised wagon and smashed the nose and the water pipes underneath. It was Wednesday and the first practice was on the Thursday.

We arrived on the Wednesday and had to locate our car; filthy and broken in the railway yard. The car was a mess. We cleaned it, found a trailer, found a track, fixed the water pipes, repaired the nose, and transported it to the race track for practice.

The biggest hurdle was air ducting because I couldn't find any spares. I ripped the ducting out of my hire car and when I found there wasn't enough I stole some more out of my colleague's hire cars. It did the job, we finished fifth giving us two valuable championship points.

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1982 Making Lists
• 1982 Signing on
• 1982 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing
• 2010 New Zealand Big Sky Adventure