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Big rigs and V8s ready to rumble

26 November, 2014

The BNT NZ SuperTourers are set to hit the Fuchs 500 event at Pukekohe Park Raceway this weekend, over November 28–30. Their brute V8 power will be complemented by the 1200hp, five-tonne monsters making up the New Zealand SuperTruck Championship. It has been 10 years since the SuperTrucks last raced at Pukekohe and at least 11 of the leviathans are expected to make an appearance, along with a raft of former champions including Ron Salter, Andrew Porter, and Calven Bonney.

The excitement is also at a peak in the SuperTourers series, with Richard Moore and his co-driver, full-time V8 Supercar driver Tim Slade, just trailing in points behind V8 Supercar wizard Shane Van Gisbergen and Simon Evans.

Moore is part of the M3 team along with Greg Murphy and Paul Manuell and he says he has learnt a lot from them — he feels that he has what it takes to race with the big boys.

“We’re pretty confident now that we’re a leading force and we really want to take it to that leading car of Simon and Shane.”

With the levels of competition ramping up in the SuperTourers, don’t go thinking that the SuperTrucks have just been shoehorned in — the Pukekohe event will be round one of a five-round championship for the trucks and is rejuvenation for the series. The 1200hp trucks hit their 160kph top speed halfway down the back straight, and the new back section of the track presents new passing opportunities. “These things are bloody exciting to watch, if you haven’t seen them before, you need to get along,” says Clevedon racer Troy Wheeler.

The BNT NZ SuperTourers and NZ SuperTrucks will also be joined by the UDC NZ V8 Utes, NZV8 Touring Cars, Toyota Finance 86 Series, Honda Cup, and the SsangYong Actyon Racing Series. For tickets, go to nzsupertourers.co.nz.

Almost mythical pony

25 July, 2024

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

17 July, 2024

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.