Will this weekend see New Zealand’s first four-second pass?

27 November, 2014

This weekend (November 29–30) is going be a big one — the second round of the IHRA NZ National series will be hitting Meremere Dragway following the first round at Ruapuna in October.

The big news for Auckland Harley Davidson’s Spring Nationals 2014 is that the Marsh Motorsport/Mountshop Team will be in attendance with their Top Fuel dragster, meaning New Zealand’s first four-second pass may be just a few days away!

As always, there will be the usual exciting drag racing that Spring Nationals never fails to deliver, and awesome cars on display.

The Saturday is a test and tune day and gates will be open at 9am. The track opens at 11am with one round of non-compulsory qualifying at 3pm.

Make sure you’re ready at the track at 9am on Sunday, November 30 for Spring National, and if you’re up and about early head along for when the gates open at 8am. Gate entry is $10 for the Saturday, $20 for the Sunday, or $30 for the whole weekend. 

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup