I knew Max reasonably well and did drive a few for him in junior drivers races. Unfortunately I was driving in the race he fell in and he seemed fine afterwards and I was talking to him in the old drivers room down in the stable area at Cambridge. I remember Ken Webber was also talking to him when he had the heart attack and he alerted the medical people on course.
Tim, back then Kumeu was huge. A couple of hundred horses worked on the track and then there were the stables around Boord Cres that had their own tracks. The workouts on a Sunday were pretty big to with a heap of horses each week and I remember big crowds on a Sunday as well. It was a good place for a young driver to learn a few things on the track from the likes of Tommy Knowles, Peter Young, Gary Hillier, Frank Cooney, Mike Nicholas etc, etc (the list goes on). But not only were there plenty of full time professional trainers, there were a heap of owner trainers as well and the track seemed to be in used all day, every day with people working their horses in the evening (after they had finished their 'day jobs')